Stacey Abrams still hasn’t conceded that she lost to Brian Kemp in last year’s gubernatorial race in Georgia, and perhaps justifiably so. Kemp, formerly the secretary of state there, administered his own election, shuttered precincts in black communities, and presided over a last-minute voting roll purge that targeted predominantly minority voters. Despite all that help, he eclipsed Abrams by fewer than 55,000 votes—another sign of how purple Georgia has become.

Last week, however, the state legislature enacted—and Kemp signed—one of the most extreme “fetal heartbeat” abortion prohibitions in the nation. HB 481, which declares that “unborn children are a class of living, distinct persons,” limits abortions to the first six weeks of pregnancy. If the law is allowed to take effect in January—rather than being held up in the courts—women who miscarry could be investigated by the state to determine whether their pregnancy ended unintentionally or with the help of a doctor or an abortion pill.

How does such a radical law get passed in such a politically competitive state? Gerrymandering has a lot to do with it. After the 2010 census, Republican mapmakers packed Democrats into as few districts as possible and used sophisticated voter data and computer mapping programs to entrench themselves in the others. As a result, Kemp won statewide with just 50.2 percent, but Republicans hold a 30-seat advantage in the state House and nearly a supermajority in the state Senate.

That ruthless partisan gerrymandering also turned Georgia’s legislative elections into some of the most uncompetitive in the nation. In 2016, 83 percent of state House races lacked a Republican or Democratic candidate. Those numbers improved modestly this past November, as Georgia’s high-profile race for governor propelled the highest midterm voter turnout there in modern history: 112 of the state’s 180 House districts—and 33 of the 56 state Senate contests—featured no major-party opponent.

We often think about gerrymandering as a wonky electoral problem that leads to oddly shaped districts resembling a praying mantis or Donald Duck kicking Goofy. But it has a major impact on people’s lives. Gerrymandering, in large part, created the conditions under which Michigan’s legislature could override the will of the voters and pass the emergency manager bill that led to the Flint water crisis. It also helps explain how the North Carolina legislature was able to use “surgical precision” to suppress the state’s black voters, and how proudly progressive Wisconsin assaulted collective bargaining and labor unions.