Mike Pence is the original crusader against Planned Parenthood, and he’s fought for years to deny women access to safe, legal abortion.

Pence’s record is the reason Donald Trump picked him to be his vice presidential running mate. Trump has said women should be punished for having abortions; Pence made it a reality in his state. We cannot allow Trump and Pence to do to America what Mike Pence has already done to Indiana.

The case of Purvi Patel: How Mike Pence won his crusade against abortion in Indiana

This is Mike Pence’s Indiana. This is Donald Trump’s America. One in which women are punished for abortion, for miscarriage, and potentially for any outcome of their pregnancy that doesn’t result in a healthy baby. “Healthy,” in this case, is determined by the politicians who seek to proscribe who can have an abortion, when, and for what reasons. [...]

This is Mike Pence’s Indiana. In 2007, as a member of Congress, Pence sponsored the first bill to defund Planned Parenthood. He reintroduced the legislation multiple times until he left the House to run a campaign for Governor in 2011. As Governor, he has signed nearly every anti-choice bill that made it to his desk. [...]

[Purvi] Patel was working at her parent’s store in Mishawaka, Indiana when she learned she might be pregnant. Instead of feeling safe and supported enough to turn to a medical professional who could talk with her about her options, make sure she understood them, and provide her compassionate reproductive health care, she worried about what would happen if she went to the doctor. She worried what would happen to her if her parents found out. She turned to the internet and friends for information. And then, when she arrived at the hospital in distress, she was treated like a criminal, not a patient. [...]

At each point, the challenges Purvi Patel faced in getting safe reproductive health care were constructed by the policies Mr. Pence has supported, and fought for. The stigma she faced is the direct result of the shaming that the anti-choice movement has imbued into American culture for decades. Her story is an important harbinger for what could happen if these forces are allowed to flourish unchecked.

That is Mike Pence’s Indiana. And this will be Donald Trump’s America.

Read the full article at Salon