WASHINGTON (CNN) --The Supreme Court Wednesday upheld a controversial congressional law banning a specific abortion procedure critics call "partial birth," a ruling that could portend enormous social, legal, and political implications for the divisive issue.

The sharply divided 5-4 ruling could prove historic, and offer a possible signal of the new Roberts court's willingness to someday revisit the basic right to abortion guaranteed in the 1973 Roe v. Wade case.

At issue now is the constitutionality of a federal law banning a type of abortion typically performed by doctors in the middle to late second trimester. The legal sticking point was that the law lacked a "health exception" for a woman who might suffer serious medical complications, something the justices have said in the past is necessary when considering abortion restrictions.

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