Indiana Shut Down Its Rural Planned Parenthood Clinics And Got An HIV Outbreak

Indiana Shut Down Its Rural Planned Parenthood Clinics And Got An HIV Outbreak

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.

So Indiana can't seem to catch a break these days. Looks like another poorly thought out conservative strategy is causing problems in Indiana. In this case we have a Planned Parenthood clinic in Scott County was defunded and shutdown (just for reference, they didn't do abortions there) back in 2013. Since then Scott county is experiencing a huge HIV outbreak and are now trying to setup emergency clinics to take care of the problem.

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.

Imagine that. When you shutdown the places that are meant to prevent these things, then the occurrences of them are going to increase. It would be nice if the conservatives didn't look at Planned Parenthood as just that evil organization that performs abortions and actually looked at all the other things it does. Only 3% of all Planned Parenthood services are abortion services. Talk about placing the cart before the horse...

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.

I added the bold.

I think it's the Eugenecist past of PP that caused this partly...

There was a lot of noise around 2011-2013 about PP and the Eugenics plan...





Thanks Obama...

Wait...

I mean thanks Alex Jones...




No seriously terrible.
We have specialised NHS clinics that deal with HIV-AIDS in the UK...

Worked right next door to one that was attached to my hospital.




Safe to say, I learn a lot from you Stateside about how it works on your end.


This seems unthinkable here.

It's Crazy, Krazy!

a reply to: CharlieSpeirs

If it wasn't so unfortunate for the all the people who went without proper care and ended up with HIV, I'd be laughing at the irony. This is the result of reducing your talking points and goals down into easily repeatable sound bytes. "Planned parenthood does abortions! Therefore PP must be defunded!"

You know, if those idiots would stop using IV drugs, this wouldn't have happened.

Now, the state is scrambling to erect pop-up clinics to combat an unprecedented HIV epidemic caused by intravenous drug use.

Did they contract HIV because they "didn't get proper care" or did they get HIV because of their own irresponsible decisions?

Why blame a state government trying to cut costs because the economy sucks but not level any blame on the idiots who shoot themselves up with dirty needles?


Personal responsibility--what is that?

a reply to: NavyDoc

Planned parenthood gives out condoms and education on HIV transmission that goes a LONG way to keeping HIV outbreaks down. You can blame personal responsibility all you want, but CLEARLY the clinic was doing its job and having a positive effect since the outbreak didn't happen until after the clinic was shutdown.

Question, how can you practice personal responsibility if you were never educated on the risks in the first place?

a reply to: Krazysh0t

Wait wait.

So, they had an HIV testing clinic and closed it for 'reasons' apparently.

And now there's an HIV breakout cause they don't have testing facilities outside of PP?

Here in Canada there are literally dozens of places to get tested for HIV. Including the hospital if worse came to worse.

Man, American Health Care is messed up.

~Tenth

a reply to: Krazysh0t

Conservativies are the reason for an HIV epidimic caused by intravenous drug use?

Those druggies wouldn't have partaken in their drug of choice if a PP clinic was open?

I'm gonna go ahead and blame the druggies and not partisian politics.

a reply to: KawRider9

So you are saying that the sudden outbreak of HIV starting literally right after the clinic was shutdown is a complete coincidence?

You can't interfere with their personal freedoms by educating them on the outcomes of their actions or providing easy means of prevention!

Who are you to tell them where and when and how they can exercise their god-given rights?

Just because there is a very clear and statistical connection between the closure of these clinics and an increase in HIV transmission doesn't mean they're actually connected, hey, we all know how science is only used for the liberal agenda!



Yes, this is pure sarcasm.

Why have dirty needles been blamed twice...

I thought this was about Planned Parenthood, which deals with sexual intercourse for the most part?




Yeah the junkies gave those young mothers HIV... Not unprotected sex.

Junkies gave those you lads the Virus... Not unprotected sex.




Edit: Yes I'm aware the link says IV usage... Just thinking outside the box here.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
a reply to: NavyDoc

Planned parenthood gives out condoms and education on HIV transmission that goes a LONG way to keeping HIV outbreaks down. You can blame personal responsibility all you want, but CLEARLY the clinic was doing its job and having a positive effect since the outbreak didn't happen until after the clinic was shutdown.

Question, how can you practice personal responsibility if you were never educated on the risks in the first place?

Correlation does not mean causation.


C'mon. In today's day and age junkies don't know the risks of sharing needles? Did they all suddenly forget when the clinic shut down?

Now if they were the only source of clean needles it would explain a sudden uptick in cases immediately after a shutdown.

a reply to: NavyDoc

Some (or a lot) of them probably weren't junkies when the clinic shut down.

originally posted by: CharlieSpeirs
a reply to: NavyDoc

Some (or a lot) of them probably weren't junkies when the clinic shut down.

So there was a sudden upswell of new IV drug users right as the clinic shut down? Does that make sense?

a reply to: NavyDoc

Now if they were the only source of clean needles it would explain a sudden uptick in cases immediately after a shutdown.

More than likely PP did provide clean needles and needle collection programs to keep the dirty ones off the street. It's a very common program.

~Tenth

a reply to: NavyDoc

If you know how quickly the junkie community grew where I was raised...

Yes, it makes perfect sense!

originally posted by: tothetenthpower
a reply to: NavyDoc

Now if they were the only source of clean needles it would explain a sudden uptick in cases immediately after a shutdown.

More than likely PP did provide clean needles and needle collection programs to keep the dirty ones off the street. It's a very common program.

~Tenth

But they didn't state that, did they. I've read the whole article and it looks like the typical leftist huffpo hit piece of "my organization didn't get all the money we wanted and see what happens." HIV is up, even though they only closed 5 clinics and did thousands more HIV tests than previously.

Even without five of its clinics, Planned Parenthood's HIV testing in Indiana has been increasing each year. Overall, the provider's 25 remaining clinics in Kentucky and Indiana gave more than 8,000 HIV tests in 2014, about 1,000 more than the previous year. And the numbers would certainly be higher if the five shuttered clinics in Indiana had been able to continue to operate.

So more testing doesn't stop HIV, but more money to a single lobbying organization does?

Perhaps people should stop injecting crap into their veins--something that is not even considered in the article, just "I need more taxpayer money."

a reply to: Krazysh0t

If the clinic was giving out clean needles for the dopers, then yes, I can see how closing the clinic would cause an epidemic of HIV.

We learned very early that dirty needles are dangerous. Blaming conservatives for a rise in HIV because the dopers can't get clean needles ANYWHERE else other than a planned parent clinic is quite the stretch!

Yup. Nothing prevents HIV like aborting babies.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

Come on...

You can get a test at Walmart and have the results in 20 minutes. I guess if you close a Walmart and have a HIV outbreak you can directly attribute that to Walmart closing and NOT the IV drug use epidemic. By all means don't address the actual problem.

a reply to: NavyDoc

Actually according to this article, needle exchanges are currently illegal in Indiana.

I guess PP hasn't been doing exchanges in those areas. But they might soon as there's legislation in the house to bring it into law.

So, the state policies are also to blame for this in a way.

~Tenth