The Fine Print Blog

by Beirne Roose-Snyder, CHLP Staff Attorney

Last Friday, Congresswoman Barbara Lee introduced H.R. 3053, the REPEAL HIV Discrimination Act, which calls for review of all federal and state laws, policies, and regulations regarding the criminal prosecution of individuals for HIV-related offenses. Why is federal legislation an important piece of the decriminalization puzzle when most criminal law is made at the state level?

by René Bennett-Carlson, Managing Attorney

CHLP's René Bennett-Carlson discusses our exciting new partnership with the Hetrick Martin Institute (HMI).
 

By Hannah Slater, CHLP Intern and Heather Heldman, CHLP Program Associate

Recognizing that people are sexual, regardless of disability, is crucial to ensuring equal access to comprehensive sexual health care.

By Kathie Hiers, CEO of AIDS Alabama and the President of the National AIDS Housing Coalition

This week the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) finally unveiled its recommendations for the use of Ryan White funding for housing. While the ability to use Ryan White funds for housing is welcome, for it to be meaningful one thing becomes painfully clear: we need more federal dollars to be invested in Ryan White.

The National Organ Transplant Act (NOTA), a federal law passed in 1988, prohibits transplants using organs from HIV-positive donors. However, as organ transplant technology and health outcomes for people living with HIV/AIDS have improved over the past two decades, the number of HIV-positive people in the United States seeking organ transplants has also increased significantly. In response to these changes, many doctors, patients, and public health policy makers are now pushing for a reevaluation of the parts of NOTA that govern organ transplants involving people who are HIV-positive.

By Wesley Ware, LGBTQ Youth Project Director/ BreakOUT! for the Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana

Our guest blogger, Wesley Ware, is the LGBTQ Youth Project Director for the Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana. His post chronicles the issues facing LGBTQ youth in New Orleans and addresses the stigma and discrimination and HIV-risk that is perpetuated by a criminal justice system that should be protecting these marginalized youth but instead prosecutes them.

By: Julie Turkewitz, Housing Works

The U.S. Agency for International Development, while publicly denouncing laws that specifically criminalize HIV, has in fact financed their recent rapid dissemination across the African continent.

By: Beirne Roose-Snyder, CHLP Staff Attorney

On Friday, February 18th, the House of Representatives voted to end all funding of Title X family planning clinics including Planned Parenthood.  On the same day they voted to continue funding NASCAR.  Women's health should not be a political sport, and there will be serious consequences if this should become law.

By: Beirne Roose-Snyder, CHLP Staff Attorney

In October 2010, a porn actor, now identified as Derrick Burts, tested positive for HIV. The news cycle responded as it often does- with alarm and hand-wringing, and with some discussion of "AIDS activists" who are lobbying California to make condoms mandatory in porn. But the reaction to a porn actor testing positive for HIV raises bigger questions about HIV prevention, testing, sexual health and about the porn industry itself. What is the relationship between HIV and the adult film industry? Who regulates the industry and how? And should this singular HIV positive test result be the catalyst for major change?

By Beirne Roose-Snyder, Staff Attorney; Peggy Lee, Program Associate; and Catherine Hanssens, Executive Director 

Last week, CHLP launched the Positive Justice Project (PJP) to combat HIV-related stigma and discrimination against people with HIV by the criminal justice system. More than 40 individuals from legal, government, grant-making and community service and media organizations enlisted in this first coordinated national campaign to end a particularly vicious form of government-sponsored discrimination against people with HIV.