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No tax money for Planned Parenthood

Bloomington Herald-Times, June 19, 2003

To the Editor:

The Bloomington City Council voted 8-0 to gave taxpayer money to Bloomington’s Planned Parenthood branch for the fifth year in a row.

Many taxpayers object to this subsidy because Planned Parenthood operates an abortion “clinic” on South College and we do not wish to fund an organization that ends human life every Thursday. Whether or not this funding request went to support PP’s abortion services is irrelevant. The City Council should not be forcing pro-life taxpayers to give money to an abortion clinic for any reason.

The question I ask the City Council is this: Who are you to make this decision? Why is it your business to force your constituents to fund an organization they find morally abominable? You have the legal authority to dole out this money, but what moral authority do you have to force pro-life citizens to donate to an abortion “clinic”? If the Boy Scouts asked for tax money, would you ignore the moral objections of those who oppose their exclusion of homosexual scout leaders?

Abortion is, for now, a legal procedure. That does not mean taxpayers should be forced to fund those who practice it. If the City Council must fund social service agencies (a questionable premise) it should allocate its limited funds more responsibly, not to a political organization like Planned Parenthood. Finally, PP’s national organization reported a total $100 million profit over the last five years. Let them fund the local branch, which has seen a 38% increase in abortions since 1995.

Scott Tibbs.



Note: The 100 million profit figure over five years is correct. However, a more precise figure is that PP made a $110 million profit over the past three years.