So…Justice Amy Coney Barrett was appointed to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court is now conservative-led. Just 8 days before the election, she was able to be granted an appointment. But somehow, Merrick Garland was blocked from nomination to become Associate Justice 237 days before election under former President Barack Obama, with the Senate GOP stating that the American people should choose the next justice. President Trump is constantly bombarding Vice President Biden and Senator Kamala Harris with allegations of the duo planning to  “pack the court” if elected, when this will be Trump’s third appointment during his presidency. 

Justice Kavanaugh had a major sexual assault allegation against him during his appointment process. Justice Barrett could not even remember the five freedoms of the first amendment. But they both still got elected. I guess it doesn’t really matter to Justice Barrett what the freedom of speech, press, petition, assembly, and religion mean when she’s just going to revoke it from anyone who isn’t heterosexual and/or cisgender anyway.

When I was younger, I could barely comprehend how authors of the books I read could imagine such miserable realities for their characters to live in, and now I don’t have to empathize with those characters. UnWind by Neal Shusterman. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. Both of these novels are considered dystopian-society literature. The major plot behind UnWind is the consequences and outcomes of an Abortion civil war. Sound familiar? In The Handmaid’s Tale, women are forced into sexual servitude to provide the population, and birth children they may not want. Ring any bells? I shouldn’t have to watch my life turn into a dystopian/totalitarian society. 

I have never had an abortion. Nor do I know personally anyone who has. But I cannot comprehend in my high school brain how someone can think they are so superior to everyone else that they can decide what someone else can or can’t do to their body. This fight between the legality of abortion shouldn’t be debated. It’s absurd to believe a civil war could be fought where one of the sides is the ability to be able to freely decide what one wants to do with their own body. 

I’ve been struggling with my sexuality for four years. Four years of my life, I have spent in turmoil over what label to give myself, or who I physically can or can’t fall in and out of love with. Even now, as a self-proclaimed bisexual, I still question it day-in and day-out. People who say “it’s a choice” haven’t had the struggle of finding the right answer. My sexuality isn’t a math equation that can only have one correct answer. Think of an English exam: “Which answer is best?” — there may be more than one correct answer. But I shouldn’t have to pick an answer right away. I don’t know when I’m going to figure it out. If I figure it out. 

But I should still get the right to decide. On my own terms. And I should absolutely not have someone tell me what the correct way is to live my life. 

I’m not even old enough to vote. I shouldn’t have to watch my rights be taken away from me by middle-aged white men and women who believe they have the entitlement and audacity to determine whether I am a human being or not. My existence should not be questioned. This is not what late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg would’ve wanted for us. In a statement from the White House after Justice Ginsburg’s passing, it states, “May her memory be a great and magnificent blessing to the world.” Right now, it looks like all that’s left of her in the Supreme Court is just that: a memory.