GOP Brings HIV To IN, WI Next!

By Jeff Simpson 

Republican test kitchen, Indiana has already been working to defund Planned Parenthood.   They passed a law that defunded Planned Parenthood, because some of them offered abortion services.

Luckily for some women in Indiana, a judge blocked this law from taking effect,  However, the Republicans in Indiana were able to slash funding, which with rising health care costs, has caused a few rural Planned Parenthood offices to close.

In 2005, Planned Parenthood of Indiana received a total of $3.3 million in funding from government contracts and grants. By 2014, that funding had dropped to $1.9 million. Five of Planned Parenthood’s smaller clinics in the state -- the health centers in Scottsburg, Madison, Richmond, Bedford and Warsaw -- were unable to keep up with the growing technology costs that were necessary to remain competitive as a medical provider. All five clinics that were forced to close had offered HIV testing. None had offered abortions.

What happens when we mix Hard Right Republican policies with the real world?   It usually turns into trouble for the people of America:

 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

But wait there is more:

In 2011, Planned Parenthood ran five rural clinics in Indiana. They tested for HIV and offered prevention, intervention and counseling for better health. The one in Scott County performed no abortions.
Mothers-to-be in Scott County must drive 50 miles to visit a gynecologist or an obstetrician. That's not an isolated insight. Of Indiana's 92 counties, Scott County has ranked 92nd in unhealthiness for five straight years.
Fewer high school kids there go to college than anywhere else in the state. There is one mental health provider for every 3,500 residents.
There is one physician in town. He saw the HIV outbreak coming and begged the state for help. None came.

How exactly is it "pro-life" to make a pregnant woman living in poverty drive over 50 miles to see a gynecologist?  

While the Republicans, due to long debunked videos,  are fighting each other to decide who can punish Planned Parenthood the most,   What better way to play to their hardcore pseudo Christian base?

While they do that, women are suffering and dying.



Are you ready for this story to come to Wisconsin? Where will it hit first?  Rusk County?  Monroe County?  Sawyer County?  or maybe Washington County!

How long do we have?

The Legislature was too preoccupied before 2013 trying to defund Planned Parenthood and finally succeeded despite court objections.
Scott County has been without an HIV testing center for two years. That's how long it took the epidemic to flourish.

Instead of naming the outbreak(when it gets here) the WI HIV outbreak of 2017, maybe we can name it the "Common Sense Pro-Life Conservative Values" outbreak,  

Sorry Wisconsin women, you get sick, or pregnant you are on your own!

Facing the Pandemic

by
Guest Blogger
Ritchie T. Martin Jr.
Founder of the Institute
Milwaukee, Wisconsin

In life we all have choices! With those choices we must be prepared to inherit the consequences rather they are good or bad. For every choice there is a consequence, rather it be good or bad. In 2013, we are facing those choices. 

In the middle of a new millennium, there are few threats more dangerous to mankind than the global HIV/AIDS pandemic. Infecting 40 million people and already accounting for 25 million deaths, it could well become the worst health crisis in modern history. The United States has embarked on a major effort to combat the HIV/AIDS pandemic. The success of this effort will be critical. Yet as impressive as the U.S. response has been, more will have to be done on broader Local levels to achieve the objectives that have been set forth. 

Rather we realize it or not we each have played some small role, within this pandemic that has taking the lives of many people such as young men and women. So the question that is still rising to this very day is, who is exactly the blame? It is contrary to popular belief that gay men are the blame. When in fact, this is known to not be true. We all are to be blamed rather we live gay/bisexual lives or heterosexual lives. Today, 38 million people are living with HIV. I personally know the faces behind these statistics because I am out on the front lines, with my colleagues preventing/ intervening, linking these faces to treatment and care. 

The face of HIV is mostly ALL of Us. The face of HIV is economically productive. The face of HIV represents the worlds' most vital emerging market economies. The face of HIV is you in some shape, form or fashion. The reality of HIV is brutally clear.

This is not a distant threat; it is a present danger. Largely unknown three decades ago, HIV is the third leading killer of young-adult Americans today-but it won't be third for long. Because, unlike other diseases, this one travels. Adolescents don't give each other cancer or heart disease because they believe they are in love. But HIV is different And we have helped it along. We have killed each other-with our ignorance, our prejudice, and our silence. 

We may take refuge in our stereotypes but we cannot hide there long. Because HIV asks only one thing of those it attacks: Are you human? And this is the right question: Are you human? Because people with HIV have not entered some alien state of being. They are human. They have not earned cruelty and they do not deserve meanness. They don't benefit from being isolated or treated as outcasts. Each of them is exactly what God made: a person. Not evil, deserving of our judgment; not victims, longing for our pity. People. Ready for support and worthy of compassion. 

To the millions of you who are grieving, who are frightened, who have suffered the ravages of HIV firsthand: Have courage and you will find comfort. 

To the millions who are strong, I issue this plea: Set aside prejudice and politics to make room for compassion and sound policy. 

To all reading these words, I appeal: Learn with me the lessons of history and of grace, so that the future generation will not be afraid to say the word HIV or AIDS when we are gone. Then their children, and yours, may not need to whisper it at all.