In Arizona, it is clear that people of color are not treated with dignity. SB 1070 allowed police to ask anyone who looks “reasonably suspicious” for proof of citizenship, or lawful immigration. This gave law enforcement carte blanche to racially profile nearly anyone. HB 2281 outlawed current Chicano studies programs in public schools, because they promote ethnic separatism, discriminate against the Latino community and violate Arizona’s constitution.

Now, the restrictions in Arizona have gone from the street and the classroom to the uterus. Abortion is outlawed after the 20th week. This is in addition to a mandatory waiting period after the initial appointment, plus a biased and unnecessary counseling session pre-procedure. According to the bill’s logic, gestation starts during a woman’s period. This odious legislation, aimed to force women to carry their pregnancies to term, is proof that Republican legislators are more concerned with toeing the party line than they are with actually helping women’s health.

This is not legislation based on medical advice, compassion or the good of the electorate. It is a measure to keep women scared, oppressed, to chip, chip, chip away at the victory of Roe v. Wade and further divide this country into red and blue states. Arizona is not just a red state; it is veering toward a police state ever more restrictive of bodily, educational and public freedom.

The new law effectively outlaws most abortions, joining South Dakota to prohibit reproductive freedom. It also joins Virginia, Texas and Oklahoma as a state using anti-choice legislation in the “war on women” that has been waged at a virulent pitch over the past year. As the economy, military and environment burn, the Republicans’ top priority is to keep women unable to make their own choices about abortion and birth control, let alone to access  vital healthcare services.

So what can we do? In America, states’ rights are interpreted such that individual states are allowed to legislate local acts, no matter how nonsensical, hurtful or awful to women and people of color. As progressives, we must vote. We have to re-elect Obama in mass numbers, but we also need to elect Democrats in our home states. Please, please register. Please, please vote. The country’s future is in our hands: there’s no time more dire than now, not just for Arizona but for every state.