In that Minneapolis courtroom, the air carried two different clocks: the slow, deliberate pace of the law, and the frantic, breathless rush of people trying to stay ahead of a knock at the door. Judge Katherine Menendez stood between them, refusing to grant the Biden administration a blank check, but refusing, too, to bring everything to a sudden halt. She called the issues novel, weighty, and unsettled, and in that uncertainty, thousands of lives remained suspended.

Beyond the courthouse steps, the impact was immediate and intimate. Families debated whether to cancel medical appointments, whether to walk into an airport, whether to answer a late-night knock. Minnesota’s case became more than a legal fight; it was a measure of how much fear a government can lawfully impose. Until the opinion lands, every clinic hallway and boarding gate feels like a quiet referendum on what kind of country this will choose to be.