There are no circumstances in which the two key moderate Senate Democrats — Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who is pro-life, and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona — will vote to abolish the filibuster, which would be necessary to pack the Court.

It’s hard to predict the future, but since September 1, Texas, the second-most-populous state in the country, has effectively banned abortion later than six weeks of pregnancy, through a law whose unusual enforcement mechanism (civil lawsuits) was designed to help it evade pre-enforcement challenges. The Texas abortion law hasn’t been the most divisive political issue in the country — pandemic policy and the Afghanistan withdrawal have both been more polarizing — nor even in Texas, where the migrant surge along the border has drawn headlines.

In November, two months after Texas’s law took effect, the Democrats faced a nationwide political backlash. Virginia, a state President Biden carried by ten points against Donald Trump, elected a Republican governor by two points over Democrat Terry McAuliffe, who had made Roe and abortion a centerpiece of his campaign. In Texas, a house district that Biden carried by 14 points elected a Republican by two points.