The US Supreme Court has agreed to take on its first abortion case in nearly a decade.
The challenge concerns a sweeping Texas law that would close most abortion clinics in the state.
The justices will hear oral arguments early next year, with a ruling due by June, five months before the US presidential election.
The fight is over two provisions of the 2013 law signed by former Republican Texas Governor Rick Perry.
One clause states doctors can only perform the procedure at clinics if they have admitting privileges at a local hospital.
The other, which has not yet gone into effect, requires abortion clinics to have costly hospital-grade facilities.
Abortion providers who are challenging the bill argue it aims to close their clinics.
But the law's backers say it is designed to protect women's health.
Critics say the measure will eventually reduce the number of abortion clinics in Texas from 41 before it was passed to 10.
Nineteen such clinics currently remain in the state.
The core legal question is whether the Texas law places an "undue burden" on women's right to abortion.
This standard was adopted by the high court in a 1992 ruling that upheld Roe v Wade, the justices' 1973 ruling that legalised abortion in the US.
The last time the Supreme Court decided a major abortion case was in 2007 when they narrowly upheld a federal law banning a late-term abortion procedure.
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