The Supreme Court on Monday declined to take up a challenge against an Indiana law for abortion providers to bury or cremate fetal remains following such procedures, once again punting on a dispute surrounding the concept of fetal personhood.

The high court turned away a petition by an abortion clinic and two women who underwent abortions at the facility. The plaintiffs in the case were challenging a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit to reinstate Indiana's burial rule after a federal judge invalidated it.

FETAL PERSONHOOD IS THE NEXT LEGAL LINE FOR THE ANTI-ABORTION MOVEMENT

Requirements to bury or cremate remains from an abortion began in 2016 after then-Gov. Mike Pence (R-IN) signed the bill into law, which blocked clinics from using the standard method of incineration for human medical waste for aborted tissue and fetuses.

Lower court challengers to the Indiana law argued it unconstitutionally compelled them to express the state's belief that an embryo or fetus is a person, saying it went against their moral religious beliefs by treating embryonic tissue in the same light as remains from a deceased person.

Although a federal district court found that challengers' First Amendment rights were violated by the law, the 7th Circuit last year overturned that decision.

In a separate but similar challenge, the Supreme Court upheld Indiana's measure in 2019, holding that the state had a legitimate interest in ensuring proper disposal of fetal remains and that it did not endanger the ability of women to obtain an abortion.

The rejection comes as Tuesday marks the anniversary of the leaked draft opinion signaling the overturning of Roe v. Wade, an event that telegraphed the high court's June 24 decision to allow states to impose laws severely restricting abortion access.

Since then, the justices have received at least one petition from anti-abortion plaintiffs who said the high court should explicitly "clarify whether an unborn human being has standing to access the courts."

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Meanwhile, lower courts have been asked to confront similar questions, including a February ruling from a top court in Massachusetts stating that a personhood right extends to a fetus if it is killed as a result of the homicide of a pregnant woman.

The Supreme Court more recently, on April 21, blocked restrictions put in by a federal district court judge in Texas over a common abortion pill while litigation continues at the federal appeals court level.