WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court refused Tuesday to block an Arkansas law targeting medication abortions, which threatens to leave the state with only one abortion clinic.
Without comment or objections from the liberal justices, the court turned away Planned Parenthood's initial challenge to the 2015 law. A federal trial court judge had blocked it as an undue burden on women seeking abortions, but an appeals court said opponents first needed to estimate how many women would be affected.
The high court ruled in 2016 that a Texas law imposing strict limits on abortion clinics was unconstitutional because it would reduce the number of facilities in operation from about 40 to just seven or eight. The challenge to the Arkansas law was based on that precedent.
But for now, the justices ruled that the law can stand, pending another challenge to be based on more specific findings.
The ban on medication abortions is expected to close two of the state's three abortion clinics. It requires providers administering medication abortions to have ties to doctors and hospitals that can handle any drug-related emergencies. 
Planned Parenthood runs two abortion clinics in the state that provide only medication abortions. A third clinic in Little Rock offers both surgical and medication abortions.
District Court Judge Kristine Baker ruled that the law was a "solution in search of a problem." But a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit overturned that decision.
Planned Parenthood told the Supreme Court that the law "would make Arkansas the only state to effectively ban medication abortion, a common method of early abortion that has been safely used by over two million American women since its approval in 2000."
The organization said it would stop providing medication abortions while continuing to challenge the law. 
"This fight is far from over," it said. "This law cannot and must not stand. We will not stop fighting for every person’s right to access safe, legal abortion."
Arkansas responded that medication abortions are riskier, particularly since the second and final dose of the drug often is administered at home, without a medical provider nearby. Only 14% of Arkansas women seeking abortions opt for medication, the state said.
Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge applauded the ruling. "Protecting the health and well-being of women and the unborn will always be a priority," she said. "We are a pro-life state and always will be as long as I am attorney general.”