By Scott Tibbs, August 31, 2015
Note: I delivered this speech at the August 25, 2015 meeting of the Monroe County Council, when the councilors voted 6-1 to give $3,000 to Planned Parenthood.
Members of the Monroe County Council,
My name is Scott Tibbs. I am a resident of the fourth county council district and I am currently a write-in candidate for an at-large seat on the Bloomington City Council. I speak to you today in opposition to a $3,000.00 handout to Planned Parenthood. I have been lobbying you to not fund Planned Parenthood since 2008, just as I have been imploring the city council to not grant corporate welfare to this abortion mill since 1999. But first, I must address the timing of this vote.
Normally, this vote takes place in October or November, with the process starting in August. That is not the case this year. I was shocked when I discovered that this vote would be taking place today in an offhand remark on Facebook. I certainly was not expecting this vote to be fast-tracked.
I have criticized the city council many times over the last sixteen years for their social services funding votes. But I will say something about the city that cannot be said about the county: The city's process is predictable. The process starts at the same time every year and citizens always know when the vote will take place. You people, however, are not predictable at all. You have moved this vote all over the calendar, including holding this vote two days after Christmas and the day after a blizzard. While people were digging themselves out from under the snow, you were voting to give their tax money confiscated from them by force to an abortion mill.
This is the eighth time you have distributed social services funds, a program you started in 2008. The learning curve is over. There is no reason that this process cannot be predictable by now. There is no excuse for this behavior. I am angry today. I am angry because the Democratic majority on the county council is trying to hide from your constituents instead of conducting the process in a predictable manner. What you are doing today is dishonest, cowardly, shameful, dishonorable, dirty and underhanded. You have proven that you do not deserve the public's trust. You should be ashamed of yourselves.
As to the grant itself - this corporate welfare comes as Planned Parenthood has been discovered to be selling the body parts of aborted babies. This comes as video evidence emerges of Planned Parenthood ripping open the face of a baby to get to the brain. It is horrifying and abominable, and yet you people think that the local branch of this organization is worthy of corporate welfare.
You have a family planning clinic operated by the county health department. There is no reason the supposed "good" Planned Parenthood does cannot be done by the Futures clinic or other deserving organizations. This is a waste of the taxpayers' money and an abuse of the authority that Almighty God has placed upon you. I urge you in the strongest possible terms to listen to the hundreds of people who have protested at Bloomington's Planned Parenthood over the last month and vote "NO" on this corporate welfare for this deplorable organization.
