Ignorance is bliss, according to the Bush administration’s ideology when it comes to sex education and common sense. Fear, ignorance, and denial of services equals bliss and chasitity in his mind (and the tiny brains of his supporters). But in reality, anyone with an iota of brain power knows where that leads to.

From a health standpoint, that type of thinking led to hysteria against victims of polio, hysteria in the AIDS epidemic, and hysteria about bird flu. And in the US, the attempt to deny children and teens proper education about sex and reproductive health, and making it difficult for women (and men) to obtain reliable birth control has simply placed at the top of the list for the most abortions (rather than lowering the number), the most STDs, the most HIV, the most teen pregnancies, and the most unplanned pregnancies of any industrialized nation.

Cheerio to those who think that being dumb is the answer.

Now here is a prime example of how ignorance and fear really work. This is a disturbing story, but it has all the makings of what we can become. If the neo con cons have their way. Nothing like taking an enormous step backwards in public health.

From All headline News

Kolkata, India (AHN) – A pregnant HIV-positive woman was forced to abort her own fetus after staff in a hospital in eastern India declined to help her.

The 23-year-old pregnant woman – who recently tested HIV positive, was abandoned last month by doctors and nurses in a state-run Kolkata hospital. She was even declined help to abort her baby.

Reuters quotes Roshni Mulani, a mother of a two-year-old child as saying, “The hospital had no sympathy for me as I had to pull out the fetus with my hands and clean myself as health workers guided me from a distance.”

“They read about my HIV status from medical reports … and threw medicines from a distance,” said Mulani, who is recuperating at the house of anti-AIDS activist Ramen Pandey.

“Many health workers in India still think AIDS can spread by just touching,” Pandey said.

Whereas in a separate incident in Orrisa, an infected man was stoned by people who feared he might spread the AIDS virus. The 35-year-old man with full-blown AIDS died after he was attacked with stones inside a hospital compound.

Many illiterate Indians feel that eating or touching a person with HIV could result in the virus spreading to them. An estimated 5.7 million Indians live with HIV, more people than in any other country, according to the United Nations.