Sarasota, FL (LifeNews.com) -- Sarasota County in Florida has cut the money it sends to a local Planned Parenthood abortion business. Officials, citing poor economic conditions and the need to better balance the city budget, removed the second $12,500 of the original $25,000 allocated for Planned Parenthood family planning programs.

Though the county monies do not directly pay for abortions, local pro-life advocates say county residents should not be forced to fund Planned Parenthood of Southwest & Central Florida because it does abortions.

The county’s Human Services Advisory Council had already cut the funding in half and the County Commission on Thursday voted to axe the second half out of the budget as well.

Sarasota County has funded the abortion business for 10 years and the CEO of PPSCF, Barbara Zdravecky, was on hand during the meeting to question why Planned Parenthood was the only agency out of 45 the county funds to have its entire budget eliminated.

Paul Mercier, who will be departing from the commission, made the motion to dump the funding, arguing that Planned Parenthood already has a significantly large budget and wealthy donors who can easily replace the county funding. He also said the county was facing fiscal concerns and that the funds were better directed elsewhere.

Nationally, Planned Parenthood took in more than $1 billion in revenues in the last fiscal year and PPSCF has a total budget of $8 million, with $300,000 already designated for sexual education in Sarasota County.

"It's not political," Mercier said. "They don't need the money."

Zdravecky responded: "I think it's a very cavalier response from the County Commission that you have a lot of donors and you can make it up. You can say that about a lot of programs that continue to get funded by the county, so it's really the backlash from the neo-conservatives that don't support our outreach that always gets the attention from commissioners."

Nora Patterson was the only member of the commission to vote to retain the Planned Parenthood funding. The county gave the abortion center a $30,000 grant in 2007 and $28,000 in 2006.

ACTION: Thank the commission by going to http://www.scgov.net

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