One of the recipients of taxpayer funds intended to aid small businesses adversely affected by the COVID-19 shutdown turns out to be Planned Parnthood. By far the nation’s largest provider of abortion, Planned Parenthood applied for the funds it has received. In doing so, the application signed by PP personnel broke the rules created to administer the money made available by Congress via its “Paycheck Protection Program (PPP).
According to its provisions, PPP funding cannot be sent to companies with more than 500 employees. Additionally, funds can’t be sent to affiliates of larger organizations possessing 500 or more workers. Planned Parenthood headquarters in Washington employs more than 600 persons, and it has 159 affilated clinics. Each of these is specifically barred from reciving PPP funding.
Nevertheless, Planned Parenthood applied for and received $80 million in a classic case of ignoring clearly stated rules. Its Califormia affiliate known as Planned Parenthood of Orange and San Bernardino Counties received a loan of $7.5 million. LifeNews.Com cited the outrage of Senator Ben Sasse (R-Nebr.): “Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion business, tried to defraud taxpayers during the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. The Paycheck Protection Program is supposed to be a lifeline for small business, not a slush fund for Big Abortion.”
The irate Nebraska Republican, angered when he learned that PPP funds have been sent both to a clearly inelegible recipient and its affilate, demanded that the funds “be reclaimed” and “the bureaucrats who signed off on this scam” be fired.
Other senators were similarly outraged when hearing of PPP funds going to Planned Parenthood. Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) pointed out: “There is no ambiguity in the legislation or in the public record around its passage that organizations such as Planned Parenthood [can be considered] eligible for the Paycheck Protection Program.” Demanding that the funds be “returned immediately,” he called for the Small Business Administration to “open an investigation into how these loans were made.” He further insisted that “if Planned Parenthood, the banks, or staff at the SBA knowingly violated the law, all appropriate legal options should be pursued.”
Equally upset, Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) sent out a message saying, “The money needs to be recovered and if anybody knowingly falsified applications, they need to be prosecuted.”
Beyind the money illegally received by Planned Parenthood, knowledge of its leadership in providinhg abortion drew additinal attention to the illegal PPP funding. The anti-abortion Susan B. Anthony List congratulated President Trump for his opposition to abortion while asking him to take a role in correcting the sending of funds to the nation’s largest abortion provider. A total of 37 separate Planned Parenthood affiliates received funds.
LifeNews.com noted that Planned Parenthood already has assets totaling $2 billion, and because all of its affiliates never suffered any cessation of activity during the pandemic while many small businesses were shut down, the leading national abortion provider didn’t suffer any financially jeopardy. Others have pointed out that, while government personnel should never have sent funds to Planned Parenthood, the leading aborrtion provider’s personnel ignored parts of the law that barred it and its afiliates from even applying for financil help.
All in all, Planned Parenthood has received a black eye. Even though anti-abortion partisans are pleased to know that some members of the Senate have protested its illegal reception of taxpayers money, more than a black eye over funding is needed to put an end to the gory business of taking the lives of innocent babies in the wombs.
John F. McManus is president emeritus of The John Birch Society.
