Updated July 16: Revised to show trial start date as Monday.

AUSTIN — On Monday, a Texas law requiring fetal tissue from miscarriages and abortions to be buried or cremated will be tested in federal court.

Abortion clinics and physicians suing the state health department argue that the new law puts an undue burden on women seeking abortion. The new law requires providers to bury or cremate fetal tissue and ensure it is not disposed of as medical waste. The law does not apply to miscarriages or abortions that happen outside a medical facility.

Attorneys met Friday with U.S. District Judge David Ezra, who took over the case from semi-retired Judge Sam Sparks, in a conference before the five-day trial starts Monday.

Darren McCarty, a lawyer with the Texas attorney general's office, said the new law simply changes how fetal tissue is disposed of so it doesn't end up in landfills. Abortion providers — not the women who have the procedure — must make sure fetal tissue is buried or cremated, he said.

"Women have no obligation under this law," McCarty said. "It's the facility. The state Legislature has decided fetal remains cannot be placed in a landfill."

The Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops has offered to pay for the burial of fetal tissue. Amy Hagstrom Miller, president and chief executive of plaintiff Whole Woman's Health, said it's important to remember not all women receiving abortions are religious or Catholic.

"Having the Catholic Church come in and solve a financial burden is very kind, but the religious overtones of what's being inserted into a medical procedure makes people very uncomfortable," she said.

Ezra said he was still concerned about how doctors or clinics were expected to deal with fetal tissue.

"Abortion providers would be compelled to make sure those remains are buried or interred," he said. "Would that discourage them from providing services, or women from getting abortions?"

The Department of Health and Human Services first added a rule in 2016 ordering abortion providers to bury or cremate fetal tissue. After a federal judge blocked the rule in January 2017, the Legislature passed the requirement as a law as part of an anti-abortion bill, Senate Bill 8. Ezra blocked the law from taking effect in January.

Molly Duane, a staff attorney for the Center for Reproductive Rights, said the law doesn't improve public health or women's options; it just makes it harder for women to have abortions by adding requirements for providers.

"The right to abortion is guaranteed under the 14th Amendment, but the claims we're making in the case are broader than that," Duane said. "The 14th Amendment protects women — and men's — rights to liberty, freedom of expression and the right to make their own decisions consistent with their own personal, religious and moral beliefs. This restriction goes right to the heart of that constitutional right."

Miller said burying fetal tissue isn't solving any problem, either.

"Women are very satisfied with the care they are getting," she said. "This is not a concern people raise in the context of health care."

Joe Pojman, executive director of the anti-abortion-rights group Texas Alliance for Life, said the law merely asks the state to bury fetuses in the same way adults who die are buried.

"We think those regulations are appropriate, and there should be similar regulations to handle unborn babies who die from miscarriage or abortion," he said.

Miller said a woman deserves consideration as well.

"I would argue that we can't forget where the embryo and fetus come from, and that's the most important factor," Miller said. "It is the woman's body, it is her tissue and it should be her decision."

On Friday, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also reversed an order Ezra issued to the Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops and allowed the organization to withhold internal communication requested by the plaintiffs' attorneys. Attorney General Ken Paxton praised the decision Friday, saying the bishops had a right to keep courts from "prying into their religious beliefs." The bishops filed a motion in the case but are not defendants.

"In making such an erroneous demand, abortion advocates succeeded only in demonstrating that they are willing to violate the Constitution to further their pro-abortion agenda and attempt to silence those offering a respectful burial to unborn children," Paxton said.

Ezra warned the state's attorneys Friday that if their witnesses refer to the documents withheld by the bishops, the order would no longer protect them.

"You can't use documents you claim are confidential and not provide the documents for cross-examination," he said. "That's the most ridiculous position ever."

Before he dismissed them, he asked the lawyers to make sure their witnesses were not too "zealous" in their testimony.

"I've been involved in emotional cases, but this is a doozy," he said.

Ezra also acknowledged that no matter the outcome, the case would inevitably be appealed. But that does not make his role any less significant, he said.

"My decision is going to frame the appeal and the record," he said. "I have no delusions about where this is going."