Louisiana

One of Louisiana’s only pediatric cardiologists has left the state over anti-LGBTQ legislation | CNN

Published

8 months ago

September 1, 2023

One of Louisiana’s only pediatric cardiologists has left the state over anti-LGBTQ legislation | CNN

CNN
—

When Jake Kleinmahon and his husband, Tom, decided to move back to New Orleans in 2018, they had plans to live there forever.

Kleinmahon, a pediatric cardiologist, earned his medical degree from Tulane University, and despite leaving the state to complete his fellowships, he said he felt drawn to Louisiana.

“At the time there was only one heart transplant doctor in the state of Louisiana,” he said, adding some children who needed heart transplants had to be transferred out of state. “I believe the kids in Louisiana should have the same world class health care as any other part of the United States.”

He accepted a job at a local children’s hospital as director of the pediatric heart transplant program.

Kleinmahon and his family started building their lives in New Orleans – they made friends, peeled crawfish with their kids, attended Mardi Gras parades and Saints games, and got involved in community groups.

But this past spring the Republican-led state legislature passed a series of controversial bills that targeted the LGBTQ community.

That’s when Kleinmahon said he started having difficult conversations with his family about leaving the home they love. When he explained to his six-year-old daughter that their family had no choice but to leave New Orleans, she said, “We do have a choice, just one of them isn’t a good one.”

The Kleinmahons join other LGBTQ families who are also facing the same choice. They say they no longer feel safe or welcomed in states that have passed laws targeting their community. Many have made the difficult decision to leave.

In 2023, more than 525 anti-LGBTQ bills were passed in 41 states, according to the Human Rights Campaign, an organization that advocates for the LGBTQ community. Of those bills, more than 220 explicitly targeted transgender people. As of June, 77 anti-LGBTQ bills had been signed into law.

Many of the laws enacted have been met with legal challenges from advocacy groups and LGBTQ families. Some have been blocked by judges while the legal battles play out in court.

In Louisiana, Kleinmahon said he lobbied against the laws, calling state lawmakers and writing letters to the state’s senate education committee. But he reached a breaking point when Republican state lawmakers walked out of a senate education committee meeting as opponents of what critics call a “Don’t Say Gay” bill were discussing why it was harmful.

“It really showed that they just don’t care,” Kleinmahon told CNN. “They are not going to support our children; they are not going to support our family. And although we love New Orleans and we love Louisiana with all of our hearts, we can’t raise our children in this environment.”

Kleinmahon said he was also receiving hate mail at his job from people condemning him for being gay and saying he needed to “find Jesus.”

Louisiana Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards vetoed three bills, including one that banned gender-affirming care for most transgender minors, and HB 466, the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill that prohibited teachers from discussing sexual orientation or gender identity in class.

The state legislature overturned Edwards’ veto of the gender-affirming care ban and the new law will go into effect in January.

Terry Schilling, president of the American Principles Project, a conservative advocacy group, said his organization backs these laws out of concern that families are being exploited by doctors and corporations that offer puberty blockers and other gender-affirming care.

Schilling said, as a parent, he also believes sexual orientation and gender identity are “intimate and serious” topics that should not be left to teachers.

“We need to be careful with the content that we are putting in front of children,” Schilling said. “I just don’t want sexuality being pushed in the classroom.”

Tony Rothert, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri, said laws targeting gender-affirming care are “governmental overreach” and encroach on families personal choices.

In Missouri, a law banning gender-affirming care for most transgender children took effect on August 28, unless they were already receiving these treatments prior to that date. The ACLU of Missouri had filed a request to block the law from taking effect as their legal battle played out in court, but a judge ruled against the group in August.

Rothert said if a judge had granted their request, it would have given families with transgender children more time to seek healthcare in other states or make plans to move.

“It’s unfortunate for Missouri that we are driving families away,” Rothert told CNN.

The Human Rights Campaign has called this one of the worst years on record for states passing laws targeting the LGBTQ community.

Cathryn Oakley, senior director of legal policy for the group, said while the organization hasn’t been able to track the number of families fleeing states nationwide, she has spoken with many who are planning to move or have already moved.

Oakley said it has been “painful” for a lot of families to decide whether to uproot their lives.

“It’s at this point that they are finding the place they live to be unlivable,” Oakley said. “This is truly about pushing people out of public life.”

Katherine Sasser said Missouri’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors left her no choice but to move her family to Denver earlier this summer.

Sasser said that law meant her 12-year-old transgender daughter would not be able to get puberty blockers – which help delay unwanted physical changes that don’t align with someone’s gender identity.

And with her daughter likely needing puberty blockers by next year, Sasser said she didn’t have time to wait and see if the legal challenge against the law would succeed.

“The broader state started to feel more hostile,” Sasser said. “We started having conversations as a family because we knew that my daughter’s healthcare could be taken away.”

But relocating across the country hasn’t been an easy decision, LGBTQ families told CNN.

Sasser, who identifies as queer, said she now feels at ease living in a state where her daughter can legally get the healthcare she needs. Still, Sasser said it was difficult leaving the Columbia community she had grown to love.

She graduated from the University of Missouri, taught for nine years in the school district, raised her three children there and served two years on the school board.

But when she finally decided to leave, Sasser said she was grateful that not only her partner but also her ex-husband and his wife agreed to move to Denver for the sake of their family.

“It’s hard, but we are going to be OK,” Sasser said. “But I worry for the families and kids who aren’t.”

On his last night in New Orleans, Kleinmahon said he had mixed emotions as he laid on a mattress in an empty house.

“It was a feeling of a little bit of anger, combined with sadness, combined with being overwhelmed,” he said. “But also, really excited for the future.”

“We feel like we can be ourselves in a state that supports our family,” he added.

In August, Kleinmahon decided to move his family to Long Island, New York, where he took a job at another children’s hospital developing a heart transplant program.

Kleinmahon said he worries his departure will leave a void in the Louisiana healthcare system. There are now only two pediatric cardiologists who manage heart transplants in the state, and they will be expected to serve the same number of patients, he said.

“That is going to affect care,” Kleinmahon said, adding that “the absolute hardest part is me saying goodbye to my patients.”

“I don’t know how many families in the last couple weeks have just melted into my arms in tears when I tell them that I’m leaving.”

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Louisiana

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

Published

6 hours ago

May 7, 2024

Press Room

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

Louisiana dead last in U. S. NEWS rankings; pollster questions metrics

Published

13 hours ago

May 7, 2024

Press Room

Louisiana dead last in U. S. NEWS rankings; pollster questions metrics

According to U. S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, Louisiana ranked in the bottom 10 in each of the eight metrics it studied, including crime, education, and health care. However, one Louisiana pollster says he’s taking those ranking with a grain of salt.

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Louisiana

Residents unhappy with Louisiana insurance crisis under Jeff Landry, Tim Temple, poll shows

Published

20 hours ago

May 7, 2024

Press Room

Residents unhappy with Louisiana insurance crisis under Jeff Landry, Tim Temple, poll shows

Louisiana voters, unhappy with a property insurance crisis that has caused intense rate hikes, are broadly dissatisfied with Gov. Jeff Landry and Insurance Commissioner Tim Temple’s handling of the issue, according to a statewide poll conducted for the Times-Picayune | The Advocate.

The poll reflects an enduring angst Louisianans feel about property insurance, which has become dramatically more expensive after a dozen insurers went bust following the 2020 and 2021 hurricane seasons and a number of others fled the state. The poll surveyed 800 voters around the state, primarily by cell phone, from April 22-26. It has a margin of error of 3.5%.

The results point to a political problem for Landry and Temple, both Republicans who took office in January. While Landry enjoys high approval ratings on most issues the poll covered, voters disapproved of his handling of insurance by a net 39 points, a notable outlier in the poll.

For Temple, who took office in January after running unopposed, the problem may be more dire. The poll found that he is unknown to many voters, and that he is underwater with the ones who do know him – perhaps because they associate him with a crisis. Only 21% have a favorable opinion of Temple, while 28% have an unfavorable view.

“It’s an issue that I think the voters are very upset about,” said pollster Ron Faucheux. “When they have an opportunity to state an opinion, it’s pretty negative toward what’s going on. It was by far the biggest negative that the governor has right now.”

The poll comes just after the Legislature passed a sweeping package of bills championed by Temple that would allow insurers to drop policyholders and raise rates more easily, among other things.

Temple, a former insurance executive whose strategy has been endorsed by the insurance industry, argues the effort will attract more insurers to the state, and that the resulting competition will drive down rates. He has remained confident the plan will work, and has encouraged people to blame him if it doesn’t.

“Louisianans are clearly frustrated by the poor property and auto insurance markets they’ve had to deal with for years now,” Temple said Monday in response to the poll’s findings. “I’m frustrated, too. That’s why I’m focused on solutions that will help Louisiana families and businesses by addressing the availability and affordability of insurance in our state.”

Several of the bills are awaiting the signature of Landry, which is expected. Landry’s office didn’t respond to an email seeking comment.

The poll results may reflect voters’ basic frustration with the cost of insurance as much as they reflect policy disagreements with Landry and Temple. But to the extent voters are familiar with Temple or his strategy, they tend to disagree with it. Asked about one key change Temple pushed – eliminating a longstanding and unique rule barring insurers from dropping policyholders after three years – 68% of voters said they disagreed with it.

Even if Temple’s plan to foster competition does work, it could take years for homeowners to feel the effects. Even then, some analysts believe Louisiana will likely continue to see relatively high rates because of rising climate risks.

Landry and Temple both took office in January, meaning they’ve had little time to enact changes that could improve the tumultuous insurance market, which has seen years of rate hikes.

Temple wanted Landry to call the Legislature into a special session to take on insurance shortly after the two were sworn in. But the governor has not made insurance a top issue, and instead held special sessions on redistricting and crime.

Voters appear dissatisfied with Landry’s efforts so far: Those polled said they disapprove of his handling of the insurance issue by a 60%-21% margin.

Not surprisingly, perhaps, the poll found a geographic split, with people in coastal South Louisiana far more perturbed about insurance than those in Central and North Louisiana. It was the No. 1 issue for 23% of those polled in South Louisiana, compared to 13% in the rest of the state.

Kimberly Powell, who has lived in a townhome in Baton Rouge for 12 years, said her premiums have skyrocketed, squeezing her finances. Her friends in New Orleans are in the same boat, and she said people are being priced out of living in Louisiana generally.

Insurance, she said, is her top issue.

“There are a lot of problems related to that insurance question,” said Powell, who said she votes mostly for Democrats. “Nothing I’ve seen from the current administration seems like it would have the slightest possibility of making things better.”

The only thing she’s heard state leaders like Landry and Temple doing is making it easier for insurers to drop policyholders, which she believes will only worsen the problem. Powell said she’d like to see leaders bolster the insurer of last resort, Citizens, into a viable safety net.

“My salary is not doubling every year,” Powell said, even though insurance premiums are.

Read next: Louisiana voters so far approve of Jeff Landry’s politics, poll shows. Here’s why.

Read next: Jeff Landry, Louisiana lawmakers went too far on permitless concealed carry, poll shows

How the poll was conducted

Faucheux Strategies, a nonpartisan research firm based in Louisiana, interviewed a representative sample of 800 registered voters across Louisiana between April 22-26.

Trained professionals conducted the interviews by telephone; 79% of them were contacted on cell phones and 21% on landlines.

The calls were based on a scientifically selected, random sample of state voters. The racial composition of the sample was 64% White, 30% Black and 6% other. For this poll, “independent” includes people who have no party affiliation and people who are affiliated with a third party. The poll’s margin of error is +/- 3.46%.

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