The US Supreme Court on Friday allowed abortion providers to pursue a legal challenge to a ban on most abortions in Texas but left the nation’s strictest abortion law in place, with the fate of the Republican-backed measure that allows private citizens to enforce it still hanging in the balance.

The justices, who heard arguments on the case on November 1, lifted a block on lower court proceedings, which may pave the way for a federal judge to block the law at least in part. The conservative-majority court on September 1 had declined to halt the measure. The justices in a separate case dismissed a separate challenge brought by President Joe Biden’s administration.

The law bans abortions at around six weeks and has no exception for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest. The Supreme Court has yet to decide another major abortion rights case from Mississippi that could lead to the overturning of the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalised the procedure nationwide.