In 2017, Mike Pence cast the deciding vote to urge states to slash protections for Title X — the only federal program dedicated to helping people with low incomes access affordable birth control and other preventive reproductive health care, including STI services and cancer screenings. The next year, the Trump-Pence administration would do the same at the federal level — an effort that is now known as the Title X gag rule, in effect nationwide.

As an Indiana representative, Mike Pence introduced the very first piece of federal legislation to "defund" Planned Parenthood. “Defunding” is a misnomer that means blocking patients who rely on government-funded health care from accessing preventive services — like birth control and STD testing — at Planned Parenthood health centers.

Mike Pence’s anti-LGBTQ record is a long one, and he aggressively opposed gay rights as a legislator in Indiana.  In 2015, Mike Pence ignored strong opposition and signed legislation to allow Indiana business owners to use religion as an excuse to discriminate against LGBTQ people.

In Indiana, Mike Pence’s policies as governor made a preventable HIV epidemic worse. In fact Pence exacerbated a devastating HIV outbreak because he had personal “moral” objections to CDC-approved measures like providing clean syringes. Despite this failure, Trump chose Pence to lead the nation’s COVID-19 response.

While running for Congress, Mike Pence said public funding for HIV prevention should go to “institutions which provide assistance to those seeking to change their sexual behavior.” So-called conversion therapy uses discredited practices to get people to change their sexual orientation. It can cause irreparable emotional and mental trauma to LGBTQ individuals, who already face discrimination, intolerance and violence.

The Trump-Pence administration’s unprecedented Muslim ban is in place now, and it imposes restrictions on who can enter the United States from a group of mostly Muslim-majority countries. The policy also bars thousands of immigrants from getting a U.S. green card if they’re from these countries, even to be reunited with family or to take a job offer.

The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program allows immigrants who were brought to the United States as children to gain legal status. Just as DACA was bringing young, undocumented immigrants out of the shadows to start school, jobs and families, the Trump-Pence administration decided to end it. The decision is currently on hold, and the Supreme Court will decide if it’s legal later in 2020. That leaves the 800,000 young immigrants who had been protected by the program in limbo, making it harder for them to access health care, seek employment and education, and plan their lives. And if the Supreme Court votes against them, they’ll be at risk of getting deported.

In March 2018, the Trump-Pence administration said it would add the following question to the 2020 Census: "Is this person a citizen of the United States?" Experts worried that doing so would scare many immigrants from responding. The Supreme Court blocked the citizenship question from being added to the 2020 census for now.

The Trump-Pence administration is planning to let states cap Medicaid spending. Under this “block grant” system, the federal government would give states a fixed amount of funding for Medicaid, instead of picking up the slack when states go over budget on Medicaid costs (such as when there’s a natural disaster). The likely results of block grants: states limiting Medicaid by enrolling fewer people, or offering fewer services, or paying health care providers less (which, in turn, would stop some providers from taking Medicaid patients).

In a speech to anti-abortion groups, Mike Pence predicted that legal abortion would end "in our time" and that “this will be the generation” to outlaw abortion. For proof, Pence pointed to the Trump administration's restrictions on access to safe, legal abortion and care at Planned Parenthood health centers.

At the 2019 Conservative Political Action Conference (C-PAC), Mike Pence echoed President Trump’s lies about abortion later in pregnancy, and he praised the president for pushing policies that restrict people from accessing abortion safely and legally. Pence’s rhetoric supports the administration’s overall agenda of working to outlaw abortion, with the aim of winning over the country’s minority of anti-abortion voters.

As governor of Indiana, Mike Pence signed every abortion restriction bill that passed his desk.

Greenlighting Texas’s Backdoor “Defund”

On the 47th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, HHS decided to let Texas receive federal Medicaid funding for a state program that bars patients in the program from accessing preventive care at Planned Parenthood and other health centers that also provide abortion. This move upends longstanding federal law.  In the past, the federal government has refused to fund state Medicaid programs that aim to take away the right of Medicaid users to choose whatever qualified reproductive health care provider they want. 

One of Trump’s travel bans discriminates against foreign people of color who are pregnant and want to travel to the United States on short-term tourist visas. In addition to targeting actual pregnant people, the travel ban also targets foreign travelers who authorities could mistake for being pregnant. Specifically, the new tourist visa rule lets the State Department deny temporary visas to people who the Department suspects are visiting the United States in order to give birth there and obtain U.S. citizenship for their baby. It targets travelers from Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

The Trump-Pence administration is trying to stop asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border through a variety of ways. That includes a policy aimed at ending asylum for immigrants who enter the U.S. outside of certain designated ports of entry, as well as a rule to disqualify refugees from asylum if they passed through a country (besides their home country) to get to the United States. The administration also stopped letting domestic violence qualify for asylum and has turned away women fleeing domestic violence.

With a dangerous "gag" rule, the Trump-Pence administration forced Planned Parenthood out of Title X — our nation's only program focused on affordable birth control and reproductive health care. Now, 1.5 people with low incomes who used Title X for health care at Planned Parenthood can no longer rely on the federal government to supplement their care.