38 days before the Presidential elections, President Donald Trump named Judge Amy Coney Barrett of Indiana as his nominee to fill Justice Ginsburg’s vacancy on the Supreme Court. Named a “female Antonin Scalia,” Barrett is a conservative favorite. If confirmed, Barrett will be the fifth and youngest woman to ever serve on the court. Her confirmation would result in a historic alteration of the court makeup, creating a 6-3 conservative, right-wing majority.

Strategically, Barrett is a great choice on Trump’s part to solidify the conservative and female vote. Joe Biden has been polling with a historic lead among female voters, garnering 59 percent approval while Trump lags behind at only 35 percent. Barrett, aged 48, is a young working mother of seven children, two of whom she adopted from Haiti. She is a self proclaimed “room parent, carpool driver and birthday party planner” and in her speech, after her nomination was announced, she spoke very highly of Ginsburg, saying that “she not only broke glass ceilings, she smashed them.” This was a welcome change after Trump’s blatant disrespect toward the late justice. These facts make Barrett a difficult figure to vilify. She’s appealing to female, conservative, religious, family-oriented and suburban voters and also brings an air of professionalism, experience and dignity to the table in a period of bitter and acrimonious politics.

As a young, centrist but socially liberal, non-Catholic woman from the same state as Barrett, I can’t say I agree with her politics or her religious views. But I don’t think her politics or her faith completely discredit her potential to be a very accountable and hardworking justice, especially if she prioritizes the letter of the law rather than the politics of the issues.

Barrett’s approach to the law, however, is quite the opposite of Ginsburg’s: Barrett has suggested opposition to abortion rights, has a very expansionist vision of the Second Amendment and opposes Ginsburg’s views on contraceptives under the Affordable Care Act. While critics allege that Barrett’s jurisprudence is heavily influenced by her commitment to the Roman Catholic Church, she claims to have “unyielding loyalty to the Constitution” and the letter of the law.

Quite reasonably, many liberals are concerned by Barrett’s appointment given her ability to help overturn major court decisions and her history of conservative rulings. These decisions which might be in danger primarily include Roe v. Wade, which provided women greater reproductive rights and the ACA. If the ACA is overturned, 20 million Americans will be left without health insurance in the middle of a pandemic and insurance companies will no longer be required to provide coverage to children under their parents’ insurance plan until the age of 26. I’m a 19 year old college student with a chronic genetic disorder that requires frequent doctor visits and over fourteen different regular medications. If I am removed from my parents’ insurance plan, I will have no way to afford my treatments. These cases are monumental and their reversal will negatively affect so many Americans.

But more than anything, Barrett’s appointment sparks conversations regarding institutional issues that plague the Supreme Court. It’s highly likely that Barrett will be approved by the Republican controlled Senate and subsequently appointed to the court, so perhaps it’s more fruitful to scrutinize the court itself rather than Barrett’s potential as a justice.

The Supreme Court is the highest court in America. It acts as a system of checks and balances to regulate other branches of government and also examines and upholds the Constitution and, thus, by extension, the core of American values. The court holds considerable influence: it can overturn prior decisions and congressional or presidential actions based on their constitutionality.

One of the lesser-known powers of the court is its ability to decide not to decide. The justices have the ability to decide whether or not the court will evaluate a particular case and in order to accept a case on the docket, four of the nine justices must vote in affirmation. This means that not only will a 6-3 conservative majority make actual rulings on cases difficult for left-wing justices, but even having the opportunity to evaluate a particular case will become exceedingly difficult for the three left-wing justices.

Supreme Court Justices are nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. At no point in the nomination process is the will of the American public taken into direct account, effectively making the Supreme Court a countermajoritarian institution. It’s no help that the Senate, the body meant to represent the interests of the American people in the justice appointment process, is historically undemocratic: each U.S. state gets two senators, regardless of state size or population and each senator has the same amount of power. In fact, half of the senate is represented by only 15-25 percent of the U.S. population.

The fact that Supreme Court Justices serve life long terms only magnifies the court’s other shortcomings. Serving a lifelong tenure leads to many issues: legitimacy diminishes over time as infrequent turnover in justices results in little reconsideration of unpopular rulings; confirmation of new justices becomes much uglier as infrequent turnover raises the stakes for each new appointment. Further, it leads to a lack of accountability and a culture of complacency. To make matters worse, this renders the nature of turnovers and appointments arbitrary, leaving some presidents like Trump with three opportunities to appoint justices in a single term and others none. In fact, 14 of the last 18 justices appointed to the court were appointed by Republican administrations.

If Barrett is appointed, a 6-3 conservative majority will make reaching consensus on the court incredibly difficult. With this large of a right-wing majority, hyper-politicization may become immensely more difficult to avoid. Barrett has the potential to sit on the Supreme Court for another thirty years if she remains in good health and if she proves to be an uncompromisingly conservative judge, she will have a long term impact on the court’s trajectory and its influence in the United States and abroad. The court’s decisions affect foreign citizens, as has already been seen with issues surrounding Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals — known as DACA — and Trump’s “Muslim ban.”

Barrett’s nomination is the perfect lens through which to critique the Supreme Court’s systemic issues and spark a conversation about the undemocratic nature of one of the highest institutions in a powerful democracy.