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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsIndiana Shut Down Its Rural Planned Parenthood Clinics And Got An HIV Outbreak
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/31/indiana-planned-parenthood_n_6977232.html?utm_source=Alert-blogger&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Email%2BNotifications
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. Those cuts came amid a national and local political campaign to demonize the health care provider. Now, the state is scrambling to erect pop-up clinics to combat an unprecedented HIV epidemic caused by intravenous drug use.
The fact that Scott County was "without a testing facility until a few weeks ago is a glaring example of the kind of public health crisis that results when prevention and testing are left unfunded," said Patti Stauffer, Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky's vice president for public policy.
Indiana's GOP-led state legislature was one of the first to declare war against Planned Parenthood in 2011, when it passed a bill that defunded the family planning provider because some of its clinics offer abortion services. A federal judge later blocked that law from going into effect, but the state has continued to slash various sources of funding to Planned Parenthood at a time when the cost of operating a medical facility continues to rise.
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Stauffer said if the Planned Parenthood facilities in Scottsburg and Madison, both in southwest rural Indiana, had received the funding they needed to stay open, they could have been a vital resource in preventing the current HIV outbreak.
Gee, I thought all those Planned Parenthood clinics did was do abortions 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year
This is what happens when you target family planning centers that provide health centers to families of all incomes.
handmade34
(22,758 posts)Agschmid
(28,749 posts)liberal_at_heart
(12,081 posts)marriage. My evangelical Christian father has told me he thinks there is not enough consequence associated to having sex anymore. They think if people are forced into having babies or get HIV then they'll stop having sex. Delusional.
Agschmid
(28,749 posts)liberal_at_heart
(12,081 posts)have compassion on drug addicts or people who have sex outside of marriage, but if you dare not accept Jesus, you deserve the punishment you get.
LynneSin
(95,337 posts)kids get bored out there, prescription pain killers lead to heroin and/or meth. Kids usually end up in the picture. It's a mess.
Agschmid
(28,749 posts)Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)He signed a waiver of some sort to allow it for a period of time this week or late last. But this is a result of many intertwining Republican policies. No testing, no needle exchange, they are basically asking for this to be visited upon their citizens.
Gothmog
(145,715 posts)dembotoz
(16,864 posts)jberryhill
(62,444 posts)If you wanted an HIV epidemic, you could find no better plan than that concocted by the IN legislature.
hatrack
(59,594 posts)So all is well as the sun sets on the golden cornfields and smoldering meth labs of rural Derpiana!