Scott Tibbs
End the corporate welfare to baby killers
By Scott Tibbs, May 19, 2023
Note: This is an open letter to the Bloomington City Council.
Councilors,
I am once again writing you in opposition to funding for All Options and Planned Parenthood through the John Hopkins Social Services Fund.
There are organizations that legitimately need funding from the Hopkins fund. All Options, which reported
a budget surplus of over $350,000 in its most recent financial report, is not one of them. By giving money to All Options, you are prioritizing making a pro-abortion political statement over allocating city resources where they are needed. This is an abuse of your authority and the money the taxpayers have entrusted to you.
Obviously, diapers and wipes are important, and are a significant expense for families in need. I have personally delivered boxes diapers to the Hannah Center that were collected by local churches. But there are other ways of providing diapers that do not require donating to an organization that pays for abortions and brags about it. You could partner with the township trustees, for example. As you know, many people in our city oppose abortion, yet you continue to force every taxpayer to fund an organization that pays for abortions.
Planned Parenthood's request for contraceptives should also be rejected. For twenty four years, Planned Parenthood apologists have claimed that the grants do not fund PP's abortion services. That is not true with this grant, because even Planned Parenthood itself admits that chemical contraceptives can kill an embryo by preventing implantation. Like with All Options, Planned Parenthood does not need a $7500 grant from city government. The local PP is part of a much larger organization with an operating budget of well over $80 million. By funding Planned Parenthood, you are taking away money from truly local charities that could actually be helped.
For over two decades, the guidelines for the Hopkins Fund discouraged the use of grants for operational funding, and stated that grants were meant for one-time expenses. Despite these guidelines, the city council gave money to both All Options and Planned Parenthood for operational funds year after year anyway. I appreciate that the
city website has dispensed with this hypocritical charade and now openly says the city will fund operational expenses, which at least adds honesty to the process. With that said, the website also says that agencies "should not rely on Jack Hopkins Social Services Funding for their operational expenses from year to year." Clearly, the city council disregards even this guideline with repeated grants to PP and AO for operational expenses.
This has gone on long enough. City government has thrown thousands of dollars at these two organizations year after year for 24 years, and it is time for this waste of city resources to end. City government should embrace a
truly pro-choice position by not forcing pro-life taxpayers to fund Planned Parenthood and All Options. If the city is going to maintain a social services fund, the city council should give scarce financial resources to truly local charitable organizations that actually need the money. Please reject these funding requests.
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