Biden admin says Planned Parenthood affiliates were eligible for COVID relief despite rules

The Biden administration has determined that Planned Parenthood did not flout COVID relief rules when its various affiliates obtained small business loans during the pandemic.

Under President Trump, the Small Business Administration (SBA) had said that affiliates of larger organizations with more than 500 employees weren’t eligible for paycheck protection program loans. According to Fox News Digital, Planned Parenthood Federation of America alone had 600 employees when the agency started contacting its affiliates about the loans. 

In total, Planned Parenthood affiliates received $80 million in loans despite the group’s activism arm – Planned Parenthood Action – suggesting that the CARES Act legislation was intended to preclude the abortion provider’s affiliates. 

Earlier this week, SBA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) said that Planned Parenthood of Illinois, which received $3.8 million, “met PPP loan eligibility requirements.” The OIG did, however, find eligibility issues with a Goodwill and YMCA organization.

It added, “We also reviewed the three national organizations associated with the PPP loans to the aforementioned Planned Parenthood, Goodwill, and YMCA for potential affiliation with the PPP loan recipients. We found no affiliation between the national organizations and the loan recipients.”

The OIG report clarified that SBA did not consider an organization to be an affiliate if it merely carried that name. “Control, not membership, is the one standard by which affiliation is assessed,” the report reads. 

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It later adds, “All three national organizations we reviewed have delegated autonomy to its members and recognized its members in its bylaws as independent organizations. Federal Register 20815 (III)(3)(b).” 

“To assess affiliation, we reviewed documents such as bylaws, member agreements, articles of incorporation, tax documents, and membership requirements to determine if control or the potential for control existed. We looked for any instances of control through voting, management of other member organizations, or business interests of close relatives. We found that the national organizations did not have unique management agreements with member organizations, which could indicate control.”

Echoing members of Congress’ previous criticisms, pro-life groups responded by suggesting that these affiliates weren’t true small businesses. 

In a statement to Live Action News, the National Right to Life Committee said, “Those funds were used to prop up Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider with over $1 billion in assets.” The Committee added, “The Paycheck Protection Program was designed to protect small businesses — not the nation’s largest abortion provider with over 16,000 employees.”

Tessa Longbons, a senior research associate at the Charlotte Lozier Institute, asked: “Does an organization with almost $2 billion in revenue really need pandemic relief from the government?” 

She added, “Paycheck Protection Loans were supposed to keep small businesses afloat during COVID, yet Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion chain in the U.S., used this funding to achieve record profits during the pandemic, with over $1.7 billion in revenue, including more than $633 million in taxpayer dollars. According to their data for that time period, almost 97 percent of Planned Parenthood’s pregnancy resolution activities were abortions.”

“Think about the contrast,” Longbons noted. “In the same year that Americans were making sacrifices in order to protect the vulnerable and the elderly from COVID, Planned Parenthood performed the largest number of abortions ever.”

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