NEW YORK – While the national abortion debate is now focused on the Supreme Court, both sides expect crucial battles to unfold this year on the state level. Lawmakers in two states are proposing broad abortion bans they hope will eventually win approval from a reconfigured, more conservative high court. Legislators elsewhere are seeking to tighten a range of abortion restrictions; one leading liberal advocacy group gave 19 states a failing grade on reproductive rights in a national status report issued Wednesday. “It’s a picking away at our freedom and privacy, legislature by legislature, law by law, with the ultimate goal of overturning Roe v. Wade, said Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America. Among the states getting F’s in NARAL’s report are Indiana and Ohio, where conservative lawmakers are introducing bills to ban abortion outright. They hope their measures become law and then face legal challenges that lead to a Supreme Court reconsideration of the 1973 Roe ruling that established abortion rights nationwide. “It is time to return the abortion issue to the states, said Mark Harrington, executive director of the Center for Bio Ethical Reform Midwest and a supporter of the proposed Ohio ban. […]