Louisiana has one of the harshest HIV exposure laws. Lawmakers advanced a bill to modernize it.
A Louisiana House committee unanimously passed a bill that would increase protections for people living with HIV and align the law with the latest science.
A bill that seeks to tighten and modernize a state law against intentionally exposing another person to HIV is advancing in the Louisiana State Legislature.
The state’s intentional exposure law carries a penalty of up to 11 years in prison for a conviction. Currently, the law prohibits exposure “through any means or contact.” But doctors, public health researchers and advocates for people living with HIV say the broad language allows for people to be prosecuted for contact that can’t transmit the virus, such as biting, spitting or scratching..”
House Bill 808, which cleared the state House Committee on Administration of Criminal Justice on Wednesday (April 8), would maintain much of the existing law, including the penalties, but narrow and define the types of physical contact that could be considered criminal exposure to the virus.
If the bill passes, the law would be amended to prohibit contact that “posed a substantial likelihood of transmission.” That’s defined as contact with blood, semen, or vaginal fluid — the primary vessels for HIV transmission. Typically, HIV is transmitted through sex, sharing needles or from mother to child during pregnancy.
“This bill is about making sure Louisiana’s law is clear, fair, and grounded in current medical science while maintaining strong accountability,” Rep. Wayne McMahen, R-Minden, the bill’s author, told the House Administration of Criminal Justice Committee on Wednesday (April 8).
The bill is the latest effort to update Louisiana’s HIV law and align it with modern science over the past four years. Louisiana is one of a dozen states with laws specific to exposing or transmitting HIV.It’s also among the most punitive. People convicted under the law not only face potential prison time but are required to register as a sex offender for at least 10 years. After a decade, Louisiana allows people to petition to remove their names from the registry.
Public health experts maintain that state laws criminalizing HIV exposure hurt efforts to end the HIV epidemic. The laws further stigmatize and deter people from getting tested and treatment, undermining response to the epidemic, experts say.
Advocates say the broad nature of Louisiana’s current law also creates opportunities for abuse, as the threat of being reported under the law can be used as a coercive tool in relationships. Such threats have kept people in abusive relationships and loomed over child custody battles.
Dietz, the statewide coordinator for the Louisiana Coalition on Criminalization and Health, has helped lead the push to modernize the state’s HIV law.
“ We were asking for far less than we asked for last time,” said Dietz, whose group has put forward modernization bills similar to other states in the past. “ We don’t wanna see more people who are living with HIV severely criminalized for things that we know could never transmit HIV, and we want to protect people.”
In 2024, they worked with Rep. Aimee Freeman on a tabled bill that would have reduced the criminal penalties, added more exceptions and strengthened legal protection for defendants.
House Bill 808 would also explicitly allow people accused under the law to present their medical treatment for HIV as part of their defense.
Modern antiviral medical treatments prescribed to people living with HIV can also reduce the presence of the virus in their blood. With consistent use, the virus can’t be detected in a person’s blood, and therefore can’t be transmitted to anyone else.
The bill received unanimous support from the committee this week, but only after it was amended. The original version of HB 808 would have narrowed the law further to require the accused to have transmitted HIV, rather than simply exposing someone to the virus. The accused would also need to have specifically intended to transmit the virus.
But the Louisiana District Attorneys Association opposed the transmission requirement, McMahen said, so the language requiring intentional transmission was removed.
“At first I was a little disappointed that we went back to exposure,” McMahen said. “Some of the states around us have gone to intent to transmit, but I don’t think that’s where we’re at right now in our state.”
Louisiana District Attorneys Association Executive Director Zach Daniels said his organization was proud to work on updates to the HIV exposure law.
“We believe that this was a narrowly crafted and deliberate change which preserves protections for victims, while also expanding protections for criminal defendants,” Daniels said. “The changes strike a balance between those two interests while updating our language to better include modern medical understandings of HIV.”
Dietz agreed that the amended bill will still offer people living with HIV more protection for their medical condition than they’ve had in the past despite the changes. In the past year, Dietz has met more people living with HIV prosecuted under the law, including someone with HIV who served nine months in prison after giving oral sex. Because the bill does not criminalize sexual contact that carries very low or theoretical risk of transmission, exposure through oral sex would not be considered a crime, Dietz said.
“ HIV could never have been transmitted there,” Dietz said. “So this is a substantive move forward.”
