The Supreme Court on Wednesday seemed open to upholding a Texas law requiring age verification for accessing pornography online, though the debate turned murkier on the standard of scrutiny that should be applied to it and similar laws in more than a dozen states.

The Supreme Court seems open to a Texas law aimed at blocking kids from seeing online pornography. But the justices could still send it back to a lower court for more consideration of how the age verification measure affects adults’ free-speech rights.

Can Texas and red states limit children from instant access to vast amounts of online pornography? The Supreme Court will decide.

Invoking older examples of accessing pornographic materials, justices grappled with the constitutionality of a law that requires adults to input their age into explicit websites

A majority of the Supreme Court signaled Wednesday that Texas may be permitted to require some form of age verification for pornographic sites, but left open the possibility that deeper First Amendment questions may not be resolved immediately.

Nineteen states want to require adult sites verify users' age through an ID or other means. That might mean revisiting past Supreme Court decisions.