Pro-Life Advocate: Indiana City Should De-Fund Planned Parenthood After Expose’
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
December 9, 2008
Bloomington, IN (LifeNews.com) — Following the release of a video showing an Indiana Planned Parenthood staff member covering up an apparent case of statutory rape, pro-life advocates say city officials should quit funding the abortion business. The city of Bloomington has subsidized Planned Parenthood for almost a decade.
The video featured a college student who told a Planned Parenthood staff member named "Dianna" that she was 14 and had sex with a man more than twice her age.
The official said she didn’t want to know more about the case even though she is required by state law to report the sexual abuse. Instead, she told the undercover pro-life UCLA college student how to go to Illinois for a secret abortion that violates the state’s parental involvement law.
Local pro-life advocate Scott Tibbs has documented the public funding of Planned Parenthood by the City of Bloomington going back to 1999.
From $5,000 on a medical exam table in 1999 to $3,600 for computers in 2003 to $2,440 for cabinets in 2006, Bloomington officials have sent $28,152 to Planned Parenthood since 1999, according to Tibbs’ figures.
He tells LifeNews.com that, in the wake of the scandal, Planned Parenthood’s yearly taxpayer funding should be ended.
"When the City Council votes to distribute the limited social services funds next summer, will they give the money to organizations that actually need it, or will they again use city funds to give a political endorsement to a billion-dollar corporation that is nationally known for being an accessory to sexual abuse of children?" he asked.
"Planned Parenthood’s repeated requests for a handout from city government is little more than cynical politics. Planned Parenthood does not need the money they get from the city each year," he added.
Tibbs said the city could make the case that it is funding health care or pregnancy prevention but many of the grants are nothing more than helping Planned Parenthood with its overhead expenses.
"Tell me, what does a $1,500 grant for security cameras and equipment have to do with food, shelter or healthcare?" he asked about a 2005 grant to the abortion business.
"Those types of projects should come from Planned Parenthood’s operating funds, not from a program designed to provide social services to low-income residents of Bloomington," he said.
Tibbs told LifeNews.com that the Bloomington City Council will meet again in April and May of 2009 to make its next set of funding decisions involving Planned Parenthood.
ACTION: Contact the Bloomington City Council and urge members to de-fund Planned Parenthood. Go to https://bloomington.in.gov/contact for contact information.
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