The Trump administration assured anti-abortion advocates this week that coronavirus relief funding will not be going to Planned Parenthood.
“Through the Paycheck Protection Program, President Trump is delivering vital relief to help small businesses keep employees on payroll,” a senior administration official said to the Daily Caller.
“It’s clear that the abortion industry shouldn’t be able to qualify for those funds, which are desperately needed by small businesses,” the official added.
“The SB in SBA is for ‘small business,’ so SBA has regulations called ‘affiliation rules’ to define when small employers might be so closely affiliated with a parent organization that they should be considered one large employer,” a senior administration official told the Daily Signal.
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That rule specifically prevents Planned Parenthood, a healthcare nonprofit organization that is also the nation’s largest abortion provider, from receiving relief funds.
“The interim final rule made crystal clear that an organization with Planned Parenthood’s corporate structure doesn’t qualify,” the unnamed official said.
News that Planned Parenthood will not receive funds from the package that has been infused with roughly $670 billion comes as reports show how several large companies received money meant for small businesses.
Companies such as Shake Shack and Ruth’s Chris Steak House, along with universities with large endowments such as Harvard University, have received funds from the loan program meant to help small businesses deal with the fallout from the coronavirus.
Many of the large companies and large universities that received funds said they would return the money.
