Scott Tibbs

Printed in the Indiana Daily Student, 05-23-2002

funding abortion an ongoing debate

To the editor:

I agree with Cherry Blattert's column of May 20. Abortion is the great moral question of today's culture, just as slavery was before the Civil War. This dilemma will not be resolved in the Showers Building, but Council chambers has recently contained a small skirmish in this ongoing debate as since 1999 our elected representatives have given $8,400 of taxpayer dollars to the local branch of America's #1 abortion provider.

Official "not-for-profit" status or not, Planned Parenthood is a political group, lobbying for and against legislation and taking high-profile stands on public policy. If the National Rifle Association asked the City Council for $2,000 for "gun safety classes" (as Planned Parenthood did two years ago for "teen education"), should the City Council vote to approve the NRA's request? Surely, being able to safely handle firearms is a laudable goal for people who intend to own them, but city government has no business giving money to a political group. Note that the courts have upheld the Constitutionality of the right to keep and bear arms, just as they have upheld the "Constitutionality" of the right to choose abortion.

PP's letter to the City Council states that the sterilizing machine they plan to buy with $1,500 of the people's money will not be used for any equipment used in abortions. But to many Bloomington citizens, giving taxpayer money to Planned Parenthood is on the same level as giving money to the Ku Klux Klan; no matter how much "good" the KKK would do with that money. It is true that there is not the consensus of negative views of Planned Parenthood in Bloomington that there is of the Klan. But why should the Council insult the core beliefs of so many of their constituents for the small sum of $1,500?