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The Supreme Court on Wednesday will hear its first major abortion case in almost a decade, one that has the potential to revise constitutional standards and to affect millions of women. Justice Antonin Scalia’s death last month may have muted the prospect of truly bold action, but even a 4-to-4 tie would have enormous consequences because it would leave in place an appeals court decision that could drive down the number of abortion clinics in Texas to about 10, from roughly 40. (Liptak, 3/2)

The clinics want the court to roll back regulations requiring doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals and forcing clinics to meet standards for outpatient or ambulatory surgical centers. Like other states, mainly in the South, Texas says it passed the measure to protect women's health. Justice Anthony Kennedy probably holds the deciding vote on the eight-justice court. He already joined with the court's four liberal members to block some restrictions from taking effect while the case is on appeal. (3/2)

Texas says the clinic requirements are designed to protect the health of women, while other provisions in the law, such as barring abortions after 20 weeks of gestation, are intended to limit abortions, said state Rep. Jeff Leach, a Plano Republican and one of the legislation’s co-sponsors. “We in Texas are always looking for ways to be vigilant about protecting women’s health and protecting innocent life,” Mr. Leach said. “It’s a win-win for Texas.” Amy Hagstrom Miller, owner of Whole Woman’s Health LLC, a chain of abortion clinics that is the lead plaintiff in Wednesday’s case, disagrees with the women’s-health claims. “The standards are just based on politics. They have nothing to do with health and safety,” she said. “Abortion takes anywhere from five to 10 minutes, there’s no incision, there’s no anesthesia,” she said, adding that she thinks there are no procedures to justify the state’s outpatient surgery center standards. (Bravin, 3/2)

Lawyers for the state of Texas are making an unusual argument in a closely watched abortion case set to go before the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday: A law that placed new restrictions on clinics providing abortions didn't have much of an impact. Abortion providers dubbed the measure "the Texas clinic shutdown law." In arguments challenging it, they point out that 22 of 41 clinics in Texas have closed since it was passed in 2013. But Texas Solicitor General Scott Keller takes issue with those numbers, saying the abortion providers have failed to show that the law was the only cause of all the closures. (Hurley, 3/1)

So why did this case go to the Supreme Court? Abortion rights groups do not consider the Supreme Court a friendly environment. But the law’s full implementation would have such an impact in the nation’s second-largest state that they felt they had no choice but to ask the Supreme Court for a ruling. And Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said a decision from the high court was inevitable. “The cases just keep coming,” she said. (Barnes, 3/2)

The current legal challenge to the Texas abortion law, which was passed by the Republican-led Legislature in 2013, has been in court for almost two years. In April 2014, abortion providers filed the lawsuit challenging HB 2’s ambulatory surgical requirement and requesting an exemption from the admitting privileges provision for Whole Woman’s Health in McAllen and Reproductive Services in El Paso. The case went to trial that summer, and U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel of Austin struck down the ASC requirement two days before it was set to go into effect. He also put enforcement of the admitting privileges provision on hold. The U.S. Supreme Court first intervened in the case in October 2014 to delay implementation of the ASC requirement and exempt the border clinics from the admitting privileges requirement. (Ura, 3/2)

Scalia's death dramatically limited the possible outcomes. Given the current makeup of the court, if Texas wins, it most likely would be a muted victory on a 4-4 vote. That would apply only to Texas and two other southern states. And it would leave unanswered questions about abortion regulations — which in some places, like Texas, led to clinic closures — in the rest of the nation. "Beforehand, there was never much of a thought about a tie leaving us without a decision that governs the country," said Jennifer Dalven, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Reproductive Freedom Project. "That's a possibility now." (Haberkorn, 3/2)

The young woman lay on the exam table, waiting for her abortion. She expected pain. Tears. The grip of regret. But the dimly lit room smelled of lavender, and the nurse was asking about the butterfly tattoo on her right wrist. “It’s for my daughter,” the woman replied. “My butterfly.” She was 28, a single mother of three, her youngest 10 months old. She lived with her parents and was studying to become a medical assistant. She could not afford this procedure; her Catholic grandmother had slipped her the $440. She didn’t want to bring another child into poverty just as she was climbing out. That was how she wound up at Whole Woman’s Health of McAllen. The debate over abortion often involves sweeping abstractions. But what happens inside this clinic — and just beyond its walls — illustrates how abortion is lived in America, 43 years after Roe v. Wade. (Paquette and Somashekhar, 3/1)

Republicans leading the special House panel investigating fetal tissue procurement and research practices are set to aggressively question the morality and necessity of that research when the panel convenes its first hearing Wednesday. The Select Investigative Panel, created by Republican leaders last year following the release of undercover videos produced by anti-abortion activists, will gavel to order in an underground Capitol hearing room while, just across the street, the Supreme Court begins hearing arguments in the most closely watched abortion case in 24 years. (DeBonis, 3/2)