AUSTIN — A federal judge has again delayed the implementation of state rules requiring that fetal tissue from abortions and miscarriages be buried or cremated, saying he'll rule later this month.

On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks pushed the rules back until Jan. 27 and said he will not issue a decision until the week of Jan. 23. Sparks first suspended the rules in December, days after abortion providers in Texas sued the state over the rules. His initial suspension would have ended Friday.

“I am confident in our arguments today and in the constitutionality of these rules,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a written statement after Wednesday's hearing. “Texas values the dignity of the remains of the unborn and believes that fetal tissues should be disposed of properly and humanely.”

During closing remarks at the end of two days of hearings, Sparks said the rules do not “have any benefit at all to health.” He pushed attorneys with the state to prove that the motivation behind the rules was not “purely, 100 percent political,” given that they were published days after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down key provisions of House Bill 2, a 2013 Texas law regulating abortion providers.

Assistant Attorney General John Langley said the rules were under consideration months before the high court’s decision and that they seek to protect the “dignity of the unborn.” He said current methods of disposal are not “appropriate ways to respect life.”

Existing rules call for fetal tissue to be disposed of the same way as other human tissue, or pathological waste — incinerated, ground or disinfected and deposited in a sanitary landfill or sewer system. The current rules do allow for burial of the tissues. Most facilities that offer abortion services contract with vendors and opt for incineration.

State officials say the "commingling" of multiple fetuses and other tissue from pregnancy is permissible under the rule, and health care facilities are not required to individually cremate or bury each fetus.

Lawyers for the state argued Wednesday that fetal tissue is not the same as human remains, attempting to convince Sparks that the rules don't run afoul of a law on spreading ashes.

Sparks had expressed concern about overriding a state law that allows ashes from cremation to be scattered on private property with the owner's consent. Jennifer Sims, deputy commissioner of the Department of State Health Services, said Tuesday that the new rules prohibit ashes of fetal tissue to be scattered at a landfill.

"Fetal tissue is not human remains for the purposes of this statute," Langley said.

Heather Busby, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Texas, said this statement highlights inconsistencies within the state's argument, which points to the rules as a method of granting dignity to the fetal tissue.

"This speaks more towards their true intent, which is to put forth another regulation that is going to be increasingly difficult if not impossible to comply with," she said during a break in proceedings Wednesday. "That is the true purpose, to make it impossible to access abortion.

"This is another way they're doing that and they're throwing anything they can at the wall to try and make it stick. And they don't even understand how much they're contradicting themselves and their own argument in the process. "

Joe Pojman, executive director of the Texas Alliance for Life, said this admission by the state does not represent "a significant concession at all" because language in the publication introducing the rule change references state laws that recognize "the unborn child as an individual person."

Some health care providers have expressed concerns over the cost of the rule change, as many currently choose to have fetal tissue incinerated and deposited into a sanitary landfill.

The Texas Conference of Catholic Bishops has offered to provide free common burial for fetal tissue under the rule. Jennifer Carr Allmon, the group's executive director, testified Wednesday and said the Catholic Church wanted to offer dignity to the "poor and vulnerable."

"No one is more vulnerable than the unborn child," she said.

Funeral directors in at least 15 Catholic cemeteries across the state have committed to accepting this tissue, and Allmon said more will probably come forward as the need is assessed. Unless otherwise requested by a health care facility or a family, Allmon said the tissue would be stored in individual containers in freezers at funeral homes and then multiple containers would be placed into a wooden box for burial.

On Tuesday, women's health care providers argued that the rules do not advance public health and could put some abortion providers at risk of closure.