OLYMPIA, Wash. — The legality or availability of abortion is under challenge from North Dakota to Arkansas this spring as conservative state legislatures throw down roadblocks. But here in this corner of the Far West, winds may blow the other way.

Washington already was the only state ever to have legalized abortion through a popular vote — in 1970, three years before the United States Supreme Court defined the national legal terrain on the issue in Roe v. Wade — and is now debating a law that would require health insurers to pay for an elective abortion.

It is a lonely conversation, national advocates for abortion choice said.

Conservative hostility to the changes looming under the federal health care overhaul, formally the Affordable Care Act, and a widespread belief that a majority on the Supreme Court might be ready to overturn the Roe v. Wade precedent, the advocates said, have combined to rekindle a brush fire that mostly blazes in one direction. In addition, an influx of Republicans swept into many statehouses starting with midterm elections in 2010.

“States are overwhelmingly ruled by anti-choice politicians,” said Donna Crane, policy director for the National Abortion Rights Action League, which is based in Washington, D.C. “The Affordable Care Act has probably added some extra octane to the efforts from our opponents.”