Louisiana

Louisiana lawmakers reject adding exceptions of rape and incest to abortion ban

Published

2 years ago

May 7, 2024

Louisiana lawmakers reject adding exceptions of rape and incest to abortion ban

Despite pleas from Democrats and gut-wrenching testimony from doctors and rape survivors, a GOP-controlled legislative committee rejected a bill Tuesday that would have added cases of rape and incest as exceptions to Louisiana’s abortion ban.

In the reliably red state, which is firmly ensconced in the Bible Belt and where even some Democrats oppose abortions, adding exceptions to Louisiana’s strict law has been an ongoing battle for advocates — with a similar measure failing last year. Currently, of the 14 states with abortion bans at all stages of pregnancy, six have exceptions in cases of rape and five have exceptions for incest.

“I will beg (committee) members to come to common sense,” Democratic state Rep. Alonzo Knox said to fellow lawmakers ahead of the vote, urging them to give approval to the exceptions. “I’m begging now.”

Lawmakers voted against the bill along party lines, with the measure failing 4-7.

A nearly identical bill met the same fate last year, effectively dying in the same committee. In the hopes of advancing the legislation out of committee and to the House floor for full debate, bill sponsor Democratic state Rep. Delisha Boyd added an amendment to the measure so that the exceptions would only apply to those who are younger than 17. However, the change was still not enough to sway opponents.

“We have cases here in Louisiana with children being raped and then subjected to carrying a child to term,” Boyd, a Democrat who has told her own mother’s story in an effort to fight for passage of the bil l. “I hope we take a look at the fact that this is to protect the most vulnerable, our children.”

Boyd said she will continue to try to get the bill onto the floor, possibly asking the House chamber to vote to bypass the committee. However, the technique is rarely successful for Democrats in the Legislature where Republicans hold a supermajority.

While most of those who voted against the bill did not give a reason for their vote, GOP state Rep. Dodie Horton offered her thoughts, saying that while she believes convicted rapists should receive the maximum penalty possible, she can’t in good conscience allow for abortions. She described the fetuses as “innocent children.”

“I think we should punish the perpetrator to the nth degree, I’d love to hang them from the high street if it was in my power to do so. But I cannot condone killing the innocent,” Horton said.

As in multiple other Republican states, Louisiana’s abortion law went into effect in 2022 following the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade, ending a half-century of the nationwide right to abortion. The only exceptions to the ban are if there is substantial risk of death or impairment to the mother if she continues the pregnancy or in the case of “medically futile” pregnancies — when the fetus has a fatal abnormality.

Democrats have repeatedly fought — and failed — to loosen the law by clarifying vague language, abolishing jail time for doctors who perform illegal abortions and adding exceptions.

“It’s disgusting to me that we have a society where we can’t make exceptions in a situation where a young girl’s innocence has been taken away in the most vile way… and now she’s impregnated and somebody, somewhere, wants to force a nine, 10, 11, 12, 13-year-old child to have a baby for the monster that took away her innocence?” Knox said.

The bill attracted dozens of people to testify, including rape survivors who shared their own stories and doctors who argued that their hands are tied by the current law.

OB-GYN Dr. Neelima Sukhavasi told lawmakers that since the abortion ban has gone into effect, she and other colleagues have delivered babies who are birthed by teenagers who have been raped.

“One of these teenagers delivered a baby while clutching a Teddy Bear — and that’s an image that once you see that, you can’t unsee it,” Sukhavasi said.

In 2021, there were 7,444 reported abortions in Louisiana, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Of those, 27 were obtained by people younger than 15. Nationwide, 1,338 pregnant patients under 15 received abortions, according to the CDC.

A study released by the Journal of the American Medical Association found that between July 2022 and January 2024, there were more than 64,000 pregnancies resulting from rape in states where abortion has been banned in all or most cases.

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Louisiana

What channel is LSU baseball vs LA Tech on today? Time, TV schedule

Published

6 hours ago

March 24, 2026

Press Room

What channel is LSU baseball vs LA Tech on today? Time, TV schedule

BATON ROUGE — LSU baseball has won back-to-back midweek games.

But its contest with in-state foe Louisiana Tech (15-10) at Alex Box Stadium on Tuesday, March 24 will be one of the tougher midweek matchups Jay Johnson and the Tigers (16-9) will have this season.

Tech coach Lane Burroughs and the Bulldogs currently rank 66 in RPI, which is nearly 50 points better than LSU, which sits 110 in the rating index. La. Tech has two wins over Ohio State this season.

Louisiana Tech is led by Trey Hawsey and Colby Lunsford, who have hit nine and eight home runs so far this season, respectively.

LSU had a golden opportunity to get an SEC series win over No. 8 Oklahoma this past weekend, but could not pull out either of the final two games of the series despite having multiple chances to win. It dropped two close games to the Sooners by a combined three runs.

LSU baseball vs Louisiana Tech how to watch

Date: Tuesday, March 24
Time: 6:30 p.m.
TV channel: SEC Network+
Streaming: ESPN app

LSU baseball vs Louisiana Tech will be on SEC Network+ on Tuesday, March 24 from Alex Box Stadium. For those who do not have that channel, they can stream the game online on the ESPN app.

LSU baseball 2026 schedule

Date	Opponent
Feb. 13	Milwaukee (W 15-5)
Feb. 14	Milwaukee (W 5-3)
Feb. 15	Milwaukee (W 21-7)
Feb. 16	Kent State (W 10-7)
Feb. 18	Nicholls State (W 12-1)
Feb. 20	Indiana (Jacksonville, Florida) (W 14-7)
Feb. 21	Notre Dame (Jacksonville, Florida) (W 9-4)
Feb. 22	UCF (Jacksonville, Florida) (W 11-0)
Feb. 24	McNeese State (L 7-6)
Feb. 27	Dartmouth (W 5-2)
Feb. 28	Northeastern (W 3-1)
March 1	Dartmouth (W 3-0)
March 2	Northeastern (L 13-10)
March 4	at Louisiana (L 7-2)
March 6	Sacramento State (W 15-4)
March 7	Sacramento State (L 5-4)
March 8	Sacramento State (L 6-1)
March 10	Creighton (W 8-4)
March 13	Vanderbilt* (L 13-12)
March 14	at Vanderbilt* (L 11-3)
March 15	at Vanderbilt* (W 16-9)
March 17	at Grambling State (W 7-1)
March 19	Oklahoma* (W 7-1)
March 20	Oklahoma* (L 4-2)
March 21	Oklahoma* (L 4-3)
March 24	Louisiana Tech
March 27	Kentucky*
March 28	Kentucky*
March 29	Kentucky*
March 31	Southern
April 3	at Tennessee*
April 4	at Tennessee*
April 5	at Tennessee*
April 7	Bethune-Cookman
April 10	at Ole Miss*
April 11	at Ole Miss*
April 12	at Ole Miss*
April 14	Northwestern State
April 17	Texas A&M*
April 18	Texas A&M*
April 19	Texas A&M*
April 21	New Orleans
April 24	at Mississippi State*
April 25	at Mississippi State*
April 26	at Mississippi State*
April 28	Southeastern Louisiana
May 1	South Carolina*
May 2	South Carolina*
May 3	South Carolina*
May 5	Tulane
May 8	at Georgia*
May 9	at Georgia*
May 10	at Georgia*
May 14	Florida*
May 15	Florida*
May 16	Florida*

*Denotes SEC game

Cory Diaz covers the LSU Tigers for The Daily Advertiser as part of the USA TODAY Network. Follow his Tigers coverage on Twitter: @ByCoryDiaz. Got questions regarding LSU athletics? Send them to Cory Diaz at bdiaz@gannett.com.

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Louisiana

Louisiana’s health secretary wants AI on the phones and the website

Published

19 hours ago

March 23, 2026

Press Room

Louisiana residents may see changes in calling the state health department or using its website if it turns to artificial intelligence to save money.

The department is examining how it can implement AI over the next few years to make residents’ experiences more efficient and reduce spending, Louisiana Department of Health Secretary Bruce Greenstein said at an AI symposium at LSU.

The first and largest deployment, should the department proceed with it, would be in its call centers. Running the two centers costs over $40 million a year. Greenstein said using AI to answer calls could reduce costs by up to 25%.

That would save the state $10 million a year while still preserving an option to talk to a human employee.

When the department was seeking information about an AI call option, Greenstein said, there was an overwhelming response from possible providers.

Greenstein, who has worked in both the public and private sectors, said he also is interested in using AI to help residents maneuver the department’s website. It houses information on an array of topics from SNAP benefits and Medicaid to oyster harvesting.

“Navigating our web properties becomes challenging if you’re looking for very specific information,” Greenstein said in an interview after the symposium on Friday. “So having chatbots to help people navigate our system is something we’re also considering.”

The department must respect the sensitive clinical information it deals with, Greenstein said, while keeping up with technological advances.

He said he is interested in creating protections in collaborations with health care professionals to codify patients’ rights to privacy.

Some rights would include a consent requirement if patient information was to be run through an AI database. Another would be a notification of changes, especially if a process is losing human interaction entirely.

“So on the AI side, because we’re in kind of the new frontier, what I suspect is that we’ll proceed extra cautiously where the robot takes the place of decision-making for the human,” Greenstein said. “But we’ll have more kind of slack in the system to experiment on the administrative task side.”

Greenstein critiqued other states’ restrictions on AI and said he did not see issues with Louisiana’s implementation yet.

“We are not seeing something that I’m deeply concerned about thus far,” he said. “And within state government, we’ve been taking a cautious but forceful approach forward in analyzing the opportunities but not making any decisions without having a proper amount of security concerns addressed or just thoughtful analysis.”

Gov. Jeff Landry released an executive order in October mandating governmental AI use to be “responsible, ethical, beneficial and trustworthy.”

The order restricts the state government’s use of AI platforms from “free software, especially those created and operated by nation states like the Communist Chinese Party.” He specifically named China’s DeepSeek AI model.

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Louisiana

UPDATE: Plane found in swamp near Cleco lake, RPSO says

Published

1 day ago

March 23, 2026

Press Room

UPDATE: Plane found in swamp near Cleco lake, RPSO says

BOYCE, La. (KALB) – UPDATE: Rapides Parish Sheriff’s Office confirmed that officials have located a plane along the west side of Cleco Lake (AKA Lake Rodemacher) at around 5 p.m. on March 22.

RPSO said search and rescue teams have been unable to reach the plane so far as it is in a dense and swampy area of the forest.

No details on the type of plane nor the number of passengers were available from authorities at this time.

RPSO said the National Transportation Safety Board should be on scene by Monday and that all further information will go through them.

The following agencies are all involved in the search at this time:

RPSO
Louisiana State Police
Pineville Fire and Rescue
Alexandria Fire Department
Rapides Fire District-2
Cotile Volunteer Fire
Flatwoods Volunteer Fire
Pafford Ambulance Service
Louisiana State Forestry Service
Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.

PRIOR REPORT:

News Channel 5 was on scene near Boyce at around 3 p.m. after residents reported a possible plane crash around Cotile Lake on Sunday, March 22.

Rapides Parish Sheriff’s Office released details of the search so far.

Red Store Hill Road (Rapides)(KALB)

RPSO said they received reports of a possible plane crash at around 2:30 p.m. on Sunday.

They, alongside Cotile Volunteer Fire Department, Flatwoods Volunteer Fire Department, Taylor Hill Volunteer Fire Department and Louisiana State Police have begun searching the area.