Supreme Court to hear arguments in major cases on abortion, guns.

Abortion and guns are front and center as the Supreme Court heads back to the bench in November to hear oral arguments in some of the highest-profile cases of the term.

On Monday, the justices will hear back-to-back arguments in two cases, Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson and United States v. Texas, challenging a restrictive Texas law that bans most abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy.

Two days later, the court will hear arguments in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, a case that centers on the Second Amendment’s protections of the right to carry guns in public.

The cases, which deal with two of the most fraught and polarizing topics in American politics, will be handled by a court that had already stoked furious backlash and accusations of politicization even before its latest term began. Experts say the court’s conservative shift during the Trump administration may be part of the reason some of these cases are being heard in the first place.

Here’s what to know:

The court on Monday will consider questions about the structure of the Texas law, S.B. 8, rather than grapple with the legal precedent for abortion — including Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey — that the state is accused of violating.

S.B. 8 was signed by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott in May, and it went into effect in September. It bans nearly all abortions in Texas by outlawing the procedure after the detection of a fetal heartbeat, which occurs as early as the sixth week of pregnancy.

Rather than task state officials with enforcing the six-week ban, S.B. 8 delegates that power to private citizens, who are empowered to sue, for at least $10,000, anyone who “aids or abets” an abortion.

Critics call that enforcement mechanism a loophole, intended to avoid responsibility and judicial review. The Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments against the law from the Department of Justice and from a group of abortion providers, both of whom filed legal challenges against Texas officials.

Texas argued that since the abortion law is not enforced by the state, they are not the ones who should defend it in court. “No state executive official actually enforces [the law],” Texas wrote Wednesday in a 93-page brief to the high court, “making the injunction an improper attempt to enjoin a law rather than a person.”

The Justice Department wrote in its own court brief that “other states are already regarding S.B….