Posted on 07/25/2025 8:56:16 AM PDT by fwdude
Louisiana is one of 30 states with criminal penalties related to exposing or transmitting HIV. Most of the laws were passed in the 1980s during the emergence of the AIDS epidemic. Since then, several states have amended their laws to make them less punitive or repealed them outright, including Maryland and North Dakota this year.
But Louisiana’s law remains among the harshest. The state is one of five that may require people such as Smith to register as a sex offender if convicted, a label that can follow them for over a decade. And state lawmakers considered a bill to expand the law to apply to other sexually transmitted infections, then failed to pass it before the session ended.
(Excerpt) Read more at lailluminator.com ...
There is a lot more to this story, you really have to read the article.
“Smith was diagnosed with HIV in 1994 and started taking daily antiviral pills in 2006. The virus could no longer be detected in his blood, and he couldn’t transmit it to a sexual partner.
Smith said his girlfriend seemed comfortable knowing his status. When it came to sex, there was no hesitation, he said. But a couple of years later, when Smith wanted to break up, he said, her tone shifted.
“She was like, ‘If you try to leave me, I’m gonna put you in jail,’” recalled Smith, now 68. “At the time, I really didn’t know the sincerity of it.”
After they broke up, she reported him to the police, accusing him of violating a little-known law in Louisiana — a felony called “intentional exposure to HIV.” He disputed the allegations, but in 2013 accepted a plea deal to spend six months in prison on the charge. He had a few months left on parole from a past conviction on different charges, and Smith thought this option would let him move past the relationship faster. He didn’t realize the conviction would also land him on the state’s sex offender registry.
For nearly two decades, Smith had dealt with the stigma associated with having HIV; the registry added another layer of exclusion, severely restricting where he could live and work to avoid minors. Not many people want to hire a sex offender, he said. Smith has been told by the local sheriff’s office he’s not allowed to do simple things, like go to a public park or a high school football game, since the conviction.
“I’ve been undetectable for 15 years, but that law still punishes us,” Smith said”.
All of this story is from him, who has an ax to grind.
The “undetectable” meme is a shaky one. It is NOT a durable status. It can change in a matter of days, if med regimens are not followed exactly, if a new drug-resistant strain of the virus is acquired, or if the current meds just stop working, which is very common. And there is no overt signal that “undetectability” is no longer the case. You won’t learn that until the next medical checkup, which might be months away.
It should be a charge (and then a conviction) of attempted murder -> murder.
How many of our illegal friendly visitors are TB carries and such?...
I wasn’t referring to him, I was referring to all the roads those laws take.
Democrats are actively in favor of spreading AIDS as a revolutionary tactic.
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