The Iranian morality police targeted Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman visiting Tehran, over her hair. Allegedly, too much of it could be seen despite Iran's mandatory hijab law.

Amini died suspiciously in police custody. Protests have roiled the country for weeks.

The oppression she and millions of other Iranians face is far removed from any religious values. There are millions of Muslim women, myself included, who do not wear a hijab.

Her death had nothing to do with hair.

It had everything to do with power: brutal, misogynistic power designed to keep women in their place. Using religion as a bludgeon to abuse and kill others is blasphemous -- an affront to the very notion of a divine and merciful creator.

Watching the protests from afar, I can't help but feel grateful to live in a country where no one can arrest me over what I choose to wear. But I also can't help but see the bright line of misogyny connecting laws that oppress women even in places that claim to take pride in freedom.

Laws and political statements that were once unimaginable to my generation of women have become a cruel reality. In 2019, Pennsylvania state Sen. Doug Mastriano – a Republican, and now his party's gubernatorial candidate – said he believed people who got abortions in violation of a proposed state-level ban should be charged with murder.

This is what they believe, and what they are willing to say when they aren't actively campaigning for higher office: A woman wanting to save her own life and decide her own future is a murderer.

Our lives have no inherent value -- only our uterus matters; only our hair matters. Our bodies require state policing.

Sen. Lindsey Graham said recently he wants a federal ban on abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy, making clear that this isn't about states deciding their own abortion laws. In Idaho, a total ban on abortion care makes no exception for women who are likely to suffer serious health consequences, such as organ damage, by continuing a pregnancy. In Missouri, state Rep. Mary Elizabeth Coleman proposed a bill allowing private citizens to sue anyone who helps a Missouri resident have an abortion out of state. She wants to control where women can travel for their own health care.

If it's difficult to understand why a woman would assist in restricting her own rights, look at the officers who confronted Amini.

They included two Iranian women.

Our country's morality police want doctors to wait until a pregnant woman is actively dying -- until enough blood has flowed uncontrollably from her body -- before attempting to save her life.

When a fetus is not viable because of severe abnormalities or when a woman's water breaks at 15 weeks, they want doctors to tell her to go home and wait, rather than provide medical care that could alleviate her suffering. This recipe for sepsis and death has become standard operating procedure in hospitals across America.

It doesn't matter if an ectopic pregnancy might kill you or destroy your ability to ever have children. It doesn't matter if you are diagnosed with cancer while pregnant. Don't count on treatment: The fetal cells in your body must be protected from the medicines that could save your life.

Whenever and wherever the state invokes power over its citizens' bodies, the ultimate message is the same: Let them die if they dare to disobey us.

The men and women who would beat a woman with clubs for exposing her hair would cheer the men and women who tell a 10-year-old rape victim it's God's will for her body to be torn in half delivering a rapist's baby.

Last November, Iran's Guardian Council passed a law severely restricting access to abortion.

This November, women in the United States of America will respond to this same curtailing of rights in our own country.

Tell the American morality police: We refuse to let you kill us.

The book banners are back -- louder and more aggressive than ever.

Adults raising alarms about young people's access to certain books have existed for generations. More recently, the movement to censor books has gotten a big boost from the conservative, political right, with Republicans passing laws criminalizing educators for making certain books available to students.

The number of book bans nationwide this school year is on track to top last year's record total, according to the American Library Association.

In Missouri, a new state law banning "explicit sexual material" -- defined as any visual depiction of sex acts or genitalia, with exceptions for artistic or scientific significance -- went into effect at the end of August and applies to both public and private schools. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that at least 97 books have been banned in schools across St. Louis this fall, covering topics like anatomy, photography and the Holocaust.

Back in the '80s and '90s, one of my favorite books was frequently challenged by parents and targeted for removal from schools. "Bridge to Terabithia" is ninth on the ALA's list of 100 books most commonly banned from schools between the years 1990-2000. The poignant story about childhood friendship was targeted because of swearing and references to witchcraft and atheism.

That Newbery Medal-winning story failed to turn me into an atheist.

I think back to the other "inappropriate" content I read as a tween and teen, along with many of my peers. The bestselling series "Flowers in the Attic" by V.C. Andrews did not normalize incest for our generation. Stephen King's novel "It" did not turn me into a homicidal clown (although it did change the way I looked at clowns forever). I read Mario Puzo's novel "The Godfather," which is filled with graphic sexual and violent content, as a young teenager. It failed to make me join the mob.

In middle school, I read "Are You In the House Alone?" by Richard Peck, a novel about a teenage girl stalked by a stranger who ends up raping her. It scared the hell out of me.

Looking back, I may have been too young to read it. But it was on my seventh grade language arts teacher's bookshelf, and she encouraged my habit of reading four to five books a week. I'm glad she fostered that independence and critical thinking.

I'm willing to bet that many of the parents now clutching their pearls about "inappropriate material" read a few of these same books as kids. And I wonder if the people who feel so threatened by works of literature are the very same people crying about "cancel culture."

Meanwhile, for an example of actual cancel culture, look to Oklahoma: The state's top education official wants a high school English teacher's certification revoked because she shared with her students a QR code to the Brooklyn Public Library's banned books collection. And in Montana, several books riddled with gunshot holes were returned to a library, presumably to intimidate librarians. After the incident, all branches of the county's library closed temporarily.

In the land of the free, some books have become so scary and threatening that librarians and teachers must remove them from their shelves under the threat of imprisonment.

My parents, who are conservative Muslims and raised me with very strict rules, never once monitored what I read.

Not once.

Imagine that.

When I looked at the ALA's list of the 10 most challenged books in 2021, I discovered three that I've read: "The Hate U Give" by Angie Thomas, "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian" by Sherman Alexie and "The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison. I found each of them on my daughter's bookshelf, among the many books she read in high school.

None of them corrupted or harmed her in any way.

In fact, reading them enriched her worldview.

Those trying to ban these books ought to read them instead.

In several states, including Missouri, it's going to be harder for college students to vote this year. Some state legislatures have passed new voter identification laws that ban the use of college IDs, creating a significant obstacle for young people.

While I ordinarily advocate for letting young adults figure out how to take care of adult responsibilities, like voting, by themselves, students may require a parental assist in completing their civic duty this year. At the very least, parents should start looking up the rules now and talking to their college-age children about a voting plan, especially for those who attend college out of state.

Four years ago, during the last midterm election season, I was teaching a writing course to first-year students at Washington University in St. Louis. I was shocked to learn how difficult it is for many college students to cast a ballot.

I knew that for most of them, it would be their first opportunity to vote in a national election. I also knew that establishing a voting pattern early on helps cement a lifelong voting habit. So I issued a challenge: Let's reach 100% voter participation in our classroom.

I encouraged them to check their registration status online, and to find out the procedure for absentee voting if they planned to vote in another state. I checked in with the class periodically to ask how their voting plans were going. Students shared challenges about requested absentee ballots not arriving for many weeks, and not being sure how far in advance they would need to mail them back to ensure they were counted.

One parent had to physically drive to an election board in California, pick up an absentee ballot and send it via FedEx to her child to make sure it arrived in enough time to mail back. At the time, I was surprised that a parent would go to such lengths, but now that I find myself in a similar situation, I'm also willing to take extraordinary measures to protect my child's right to vote.

My daughter attends a university in Texas, but she is a resident of Missouri and registered to vote here. In order to vote absentee, she would need to fill out a form requesting an absentee ballot and note the reason why she was doing so. Since sending mail to university addresses can be unreliable, she would request to have the ballot mailed to our home address. I would then mail it to her, and would likely need to include postage. She would fill out and sign the ballot -- which would then need to be signed on the envelope, in front of a notary, before being mailed back.

A notary!

There are many points at which this system could break down -- especially if the mail is delayed at any step along the way.

Her other option would be to register to vote in Texas. Texas, like Missouri, no longer allows identification issued by universities to be used to vote, despite the fact that the schools verify each student's identity beforehand. So she would need to find a way to get a new Texas-issued ID. She lives on campus and does not have a car. Further complicating the situation, getting a Texas-issued ID would immediately invalidate her Missouri driver's license, which she needs to drive when she is home. Plus, she doesn't have her original birth certificate or Social Security card there with her.

I spent two full days trying to figure out the simplest way she could vote in the upcoming election. I even checked how much it would cost to fly her back home during the voting window. That would be around $500 -- well outside my budget.

It looks like her best option will be to register to vote in Texas. I sent her the address for the county election board and told her to take an Uber. I plan to see her before November, so I can give her her passport, which she can use to vote in Texas without invalidating her Missouri driver's license.

It should not be this difficult for an American citizen to exercise their basic, fundamental right to vote.

Given that the youth vote hit an all-time high in the 2020 election and that their support for President Joe Biden was a decisive factor in key races throughout the country, I can see why Republican-controlled legislatures would want to suppress their votes.

Like I told my students, there's a reason elected officials make it so difficult for you to make your voices heard.

Don't let them stop you.