Bobby Jindal Wants To Increase STDs In Louisiana {Picture, Video]

As expected, Senate Republicans failed in their attempt to cut off contraception and health screening services for Planned Parenthood patients. But Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal rushed to act, announcing that Medicaid patients who go to Planned Parenthood will not be allowed to go there any more. Planned Parenthood estimates that 4,300 women will be cut off from their current gynecological care because of this. 

The accusations are not true, of course. The entire scandal is a charade to advance the larger war on the sex lives of low-income people in Louisiana. 

Louisiana is already one of the worst states in the country for STI transmissions, ranking second for gonorrhea and fourth for chlamydia infections. The state has the eighth highest teen birth rate in the nation. The HIV problem in Louisiana is particularly bad, with New Orleans routinely ranking in the top-five highest-transmission cities in the country. In 2012, the state went to No. 1 in the country for HIV cases in people ages 13 to 24.

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Despite the enormous scale of sexual-health problems in the state, efforts to get comprehensive sex education into Louisiana’s schools continue to be shut down—Democratic state representative Patricia Smith tried last year, only to face a wall of opposition from Bobby Jindal–style religious conservatives, i.e., the same people who think that fetal-tissue research means that low-income women should lose access to Pap smears and birth control pills. Smith’s bill lost in a 67-23 vote in the state legislature. The state’s current policy pushes abstinence programs, even though research shows a strong correlation between abstinence programs and HIV transmission rates among African-American youth in the state. SOURCE