City of St. Petersburg votes against resolution to fund abortion travel

The city council of St. Petersburg, Florida, voted 6-2 last week against a proposal to give $50,000 to the Tampa Bay Abortion Fund (TBAF), an organization that funds abortion travel.

According to the Tampa Bay Times, though a majority of council members said they support abortion, they voted no after two state lawmakers threatened to pull funding from the city if they voted in favor of the proposal. Only council members Deborah Figgs-Sanders and Richie Floyd voted for the resolution.

In March, Mike Beltran, R-Riverview, and Berny Jacques, R-Seminole, sent a letter to Mayor Ken Welch and City Council member Gina Driscoll warning that using taxpayer funds to pay for abortion travel would also violate state law.

“Not only is the City’s contemplated assistance to the TBAF unlawful, it is a wasteful and frivolous use of tax dollars,” they wrote. “The City obviously has no need for any further funding from Florida taxpayers if the City intends to spend money in violation of state law.”

City Council chairperson Brandi Gabbard was one council member who said she voted against the resolution even though she supported it in theory.

“I’ve been staying awake at night, worrying and thinking about this because this is probably, of all the difficult votes, one of the most difficult,” she said. “Because I wanted to stand with the women of St. Petersburg and I just believe there is more work that I personally can do to do that is not worth sacrificing because of punitive damages that we know could come down.”

Though the council did decline the abortion funding, they vote 6-2 in favor of a resolution that states the St. Petersburg residents have a right to make “reproductive choices” for themselves — including abortion. The resolution also stipulates that local police should not spend money investigating people for abortion-related crimes.

St. Petersburg Mayor Ken Welch issued a statement following the vote. “In St. Petersburg, the State of Florida and nationwide, there are passionate beliefs and advocates on both sides of this important debate. It is our duty as Americans to protect the process of democracy and ensure that all voices have an opportunity to be heard, as was just carried out in our Council Chambers,” he said.

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