What do Gov. Pence, Planned Parenthood and Indiana's HIV epidemic all have in common?

Gov. Mike Pence (R-IN)

Gov. Mike Pence (R-IN)

Gov. Mike Pence declared a public health emergency in Scott County, Indiana, last week after 79 people tested positive for HIV linked to intravenous drug use. Funny story about that:

Scott County, Indiana, the center of an exploding HIV outbreak, has been without an HIV testing center since early 2013, when the sole provider -- a Planned Parenthood clinic -- was forced to close its doors. The clinic did not offer abortion services.

The Scott County clinic and four other Planned Parenthood facilities in the state, all of which provided HIV testing and information, have shuttered since 2011, in large part due to funding cuts to the state's public health infrastructure.

In 2011, Mike Pence was in the House of Representatives, so he wasn't directly responsible for Planned Parenthood cuts made at the state level. But in 2011, Pence pushed an amendment to defund Planned Parenthood through the House, as part of the wave of Republican attacks on Planned Parenthood that also closed that Scott County clinic, leaving the area without an HIV testing center.

Amendments to defund Planned Parenthood are exactly the sort of thing that made Pence a darling of the far right, a governor, and, to hear some people talk, a plausible presidential candidate. So while he's now taking action to set up a needle exchange to stem the HIV outbreak—despite his general opposition to needle exchanges—the fact is that this outbreak is a direct result of the kind of policies that Mike Pence embraces.