When I heard about the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, I was at a loss for words.

My brain stopped working, and I had no idea how to process this explosive information.

At first, I was convinced that it wasn’t true, that I had misread the headline of the news article. I was absolutely stunned as I sat on the edge of my bed for what felt like an eternity just trying to come to terms with our new reality.

I was stunned; not because I didn’t think the Supreme Court could make this decision, because let’s be honest, the justices made it very clear that they had the power and the determination to overturn Roe v. Wade when the draft was leaked in May.

I was stunned by the myriad of emotions that swept over me; there were so many that I couldn’t quite articulate what I was feeling or thinking. There was so much fear, dread, devastation, heartbreak, anxiety, sadness and rage rushing through my mind and body.

I was, and still am, terrified of what this ruling now means for millions of people in the U.S., myself included.

I feel so betrayed by those who hold the power to make massive, life altering decisions such as this. I am a 21-year-old, cisgender woman, and have so many years left in my childbearing life — the amount of “what if” situations are endless.

Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Samuel Alito Jr., Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch, and Clarence Thomas all voted to take my rights to my own body away from me.

The Supreme Court Justices operate in one of the most powerful institutions in this country. The selection of the nine justices is supposedly a thorough and fair process.

But as far as I can tell, it doesn’t seem like this process has been successful in terms of fairness as of late.

We, the people, do not get a say in who is chosen for a position on the Supreme Court. The president is the one who nominates someone to the Supreme Court, and that person is confirmed by the Senate; after they are confirmed, they hold this position for the rest of their life or until they retire.

The job of the justices is to make sure that they are making decisions that protect and reflect the wants and needs of the people.

Because the justices don’t campaign or run for re-election, the president has total control over who gets this position. So whoever we elect, we must place all of our trust in them, trusting they will make the best choice for us.

We want people who are going to vote and rule in ways that are just, fair and unbiased; nothing less. If the justices can’t do those things then we don’t want them and they certainly don’t deserve to be in a position with so much power. If the last two or three weeks have shown us anything, it’s that the justices who hold office right now are not concerned about making decisions that will protect and serve us – they are only interested in serving their own agendas.

They are not fit to serve this country in the Supreme Court any longer, especially the six who voted to overturn Roe.

The overturning of Roe will have horrendous ripple effects for years to come. Abortions aren’t going to stop due to the lack of safe and clean access to them. This certainly doesn’t mean there will be more healthy and happy babies born.

The only thing these actions guarantee is there will be more people who decide to take matters into their own hands. Horror stories of women using wire hangers, drinking bleach, using drugs and alcohol, or even resorting to physical violence, self inflicted or not, will start becoming more and more normalized. People are going to resort to anything and everything to terminate their unwanted pregnancies.

The six justices who voted to overturn Roe have successfully ripped away the lives of so many people. Necessary, lifesaving healthcare has been stolen from the people who need it the most.

The overturning of Roe doesn’t necessarily mean that abortion is completely illegal, but it might as well be with the decision being turned over to individual states.

So far, 13 of the 50 states have enacted their trigger laws – putting them into effect the moment Roe fell. Unsurprisingly, Utah was one of these states.

According to The Salt Lake Tribune, Utah’s trigger law makes almost all abortions illegal, except in a very limited number of cases.

SB174, Utah’s trigger law, states that a woman can only get an abortion if her life is at risk; if two doctors who practice “maternal fetal medicine” agree that the fetus has a defect that is both uniformly lethal and diagnosable; and if the pregnancy was caused by rape or incest.

Of course, these scenarios come with some caveats.

The only birth defects that would qualify as being severe enough to allow an abortion are those that cause “an individual to live in a mentally vegetative state.”

Another caveat to this law is that victims of incest and rape can get abortions, but only if their doctor can verify the rape or incest has been reported to law enforcement.

So not only do the victims of such heinous crimes have to endure the trauma of rape or incest and then end up pregnant by their abuser, but to top it all off, they must report it to the police — who may or may not believe them — to relive that trauma and then have someone decide if they are “worthy” enough to get an abortion.

Luckily though, Planned Parenthood Association of Utah filed a lawsuit on June 25 to try and block Utah’s trigger law from taking effect according to The Salt Lake Tribune.

On June 27 the judge granted their request for a temporary restraining order, allowing abortions to continue in Utah for the time being, but this is only temporary.

On top of these trigger laws, more states have already passed laws that severely limit someone’s ability to obtain an abortion.

Other states have been passing laws that make it illegal to terminate a pregnancy after six to eight weeks, which is rarely enough time to realize you are pregnant. The ramifications of the Supreme Court’s decision are ever-evolving, as we have seen these past two weeks.

So far, nine states have completely banned abortions: Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, West Virgina and Wisconsin, according to NPR. Many other states have already or are in the process of severely restricting access to abortions.

To put it simply, these laws are asinine.

Why do strangers get to decide what I do with my body?
Why should I be forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy to full term?
Why should an old-ass white man with a bitter superiority complex be able to tell me what to do?
None of this should be legal or have been able to happen.
If you’re against abortions, don’t get one.
These “pro-life” representatives love to spout that they’re doing this for the “better of humanity” and that they’re “saving lives,” but what about the mothers who want a child but giving birth has a 90% chance of killing them? What about the young girls who are raped by their creepy uncles and then forced to carry the pregnancy to full term? What about the women who are poor and marginalized and don’t have enough money or resources to drive to another state to obtain the healthcare they should be privy to in the first place? What about the thousands of women who now can’t do a damn thing because some old, bitter men with superiority complexes think they should have control over everything, every woman does? What about their lives?

It seems to me that lives aren’t being saved — they are being brutally ripped away.

The people who made this monstrous decision on June 24 are well into their mid-50s, some of them are even in their mid to late 70s.

This decision does not affect them or their generation in the slightest.

Overturning Roe has and will continue to affect millennials, generation z and everyone who comes after us.
To be frank, we need people who were born within the last two decades to be representing us.

We need people who are connected to the world as it is today, not the world as it was 30 or 40 years ago when they joined SCOTUS.

Going back in time is not an option and this ruling sets us back nearly 50 years.

On July 8, President Joe Biden signed an executive order that is meant to help restore some abortion access to people across the country, according to NPR. While this is a valiant effort on Biden’s part, it’s too late and doesn’t go far enough to protect reproductive rights.

This executive order doesn’t fully restore the rights that were taken away from us. It allows protection of patients and providers of abortions, allows for mobile clinics to be set up on the borders of states where abortion is now restricted and, according to NPR, “seeks to convene private, pro bono lawyers to offer support to people crossing state lines to get an abortion.”

The order also asks the secretary of Health and Human Services to compile a report in the next 30 days outlining more ways in which medication, abortions, IUDs, emergency contraception and other reproductive care can be protected.

While this order could be considered a step in the right direction, it’s still not enough. Roe was overturned, and our rights to safe and appropriate reproductive care were stripped; this order feels as if it is just a band-aid on a bullet wound.