WASHINGTON – The abortion debate is returning to a recast Supreme Court that now may be tilted against the restrictive Texas law in ­question.

And the resolution probably all comes down, once more, to 79-year-old Justice Anthony Kennedy.

In a highly anticipated, hourlong oral argument set for Wednesday morning, the court will consider a challenge to a 2013 Texas law governing abortion clinics. Whatever the law's intent, it effectively restricts abortion providers and hinders women seeking to end their pregnancies.

The late Justice Antonin Scalia almost certainly would have voted to uphold the law. With his death, the high court's eight remaining justices could end up tied, an outcome that would keep the law in effect, or they could be stacked, ever so slightly, in favor of overturning the law, ruling for the abortion-providing clinics that have challenged the restrictions.

Predicting Kennedy's vote is tricky. In 2007, he wrote the opinion upholding a federal ban on so-called partial-birth abortions. But in 1992, he joined a ruling restricting how a state can regulate abortion clinics, and some close court-watchers predict he will do so again.

"The big question is whether Justice Kennedy will hold the line," attorney and Supreme Court practitioner Lori Alvino McGill said. She said she thinks Kennedy will find the Texas law imposes an undue burden on women.

At the same Georgetown University Law Center briefing, attorney and SCOTUSblog founder Tom Goldstein agreed that "the wind is in the sails" of those opposing the Texas law.

Still, with Scalia now gone, the dynamics of the court could shift. This case, now called Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt, marks the first time in nine years that the Supreme Court has directly considered an abortion law.

Whole Woman's Health, the organization whose name leads the legal challenge, operates abortion-providing clinics in Fort Worth, San Antonio and McAllen, a border city about 150 miles south of Corpus Christi. Their opposite number in the Supreme Court case, Dr. John Hellerstedt, is the commissioner of the Texas Department of State Health Services.

Hellerstedt's agency administers the requirements imposed by Texas legislators through what was called House Bill 2. One provision not challenged before the Supreme Court bans abortions after 20 weeks. Another provision, which is challenged, requires abortion clinics to meet the same standards as ambulatory surgical centers. Standards range from a minimum square-footage requirement to rules covering ­plumbing, heating, lighting and ventilation.

Another challenged provision requires doctors performing abortions to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles.

"The Texas Legislature passed HB2 to provide abortion patients with 'the highest standard of health care,' " Texas Solicitor General Scott A. Keller asserted in the state's brief.

The clinics contend abortions are safer than many other medical procedures that are less stringently regulated and that the clinic regulations have only one purpose: to reduce the availability of abortions.

"These laws are tantamount to an outright ban for too many," said Amy Hagstrom Miller, chief executive of Whole Woman's Health.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.