Politics

Planned Parenthood Will Receive Zero Coronavirus Aid, Trump Admin Official Says

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The Trump administration has ensured that no coronavirus funding will go to the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, according to a senior administration official.

No funding from the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), a program created to assist small businesses during the coronavirus pandemic, will go to the nation’s largest abortion provider, the official told the Daily Caller News Foundation Thursday.

“Through the Paycheck Protection Program, President Trump is delivering vital relief to help small businesses keep employees on payroll,” a senior administration official told the DCNF.

“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.

News that Planned Parenthood will not receive the PPP funding was first reported by the Daily Signal Thursday. The publication notes that the PPP forgives the government loans of businesses with less than 500 employees if these businesses don’t lay off their employees. Employers must still pay interest on the loans, a process which the Small Business Administration (SBA) oversees.

“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.

The official noted that Planned Parenthood has over 16,000 employees nationwide and thus is not eligible for PPP money.

“The interim final rule made crystal clear that an organization with Planned Parenthood’s corporate structure doesn’t qualify,” the official added.

The news comes as abortion providers across the nation protest coronavirus abortion bans that some governors have mandated in order to preserve personal protective equipment (PPE) during the virus. Abortion advocates, led by Planned Parenthood and the Center for Reproductive Rights, have struck back at such bans through legal measures.

The National Abortion Right’s Action League has accused both President Donald Trump and Republicans of using the coronavirus to limit abortion access, to which the Trump campaign responded by saying the abortion lobby’s attempts to use coronavirus to promote abortion are “disgusting.”

“President Trump is the most pro-life president in American history,” Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh told the DCNF at the time.

He added: “It’s disgusting, but not surprising, that the extreme abortion lobby would try to use a global health crisis to promote the killing of unborn children.”