OAN’s Elizabeth Volberding
1:40 PM – Tuesday, December 12, 2023
According to a newly released report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), Planned Parenthood received $90 million in Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) funds during the COVID-19 pandemic.
On Tuesday morning, the GAO released a report which reveals that Planned Parenthood affiliates accepted the hefty loan during the pandemic.
However, PPP loans were established in order to bailout small, independent companies that have less than 500 employees.
Pro-life supporters brought up their concerns with the Small Business Administration (SBA), which is an independent government organization that advocates for entrepreneurs, and they asserted that Planned Parenthood has over 16,000 employees throughout the United States, which is above the limit to be regarded as a “small business.”
Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), one of the legislators that initially requested the report in January 2022, said that the Planned Parenthood PPP loan report was “appalling.”
“While small businesses struggled to make ends meet during the pandemic, Planned Parenthood illegally siphoned over $90 million from the Paycheck Protection Program, specifically designed to help our mom and pop shops keep their doors open,” Blackburn declared in a statement.
“The American people want their tax dollars spent responsibly and in line with our nation’s values — not on the Left’s abortion-on-demand agenda,” she added.
The report summarized federal funding received by multiple giant pro-abortion agencies between 2019 and 2021, which amounted to almost $2 billion.
Republican New Jersey Representative Chris Smith was also one of the lawmakers to request the report. He stated that the PPP loans were “money that could have gone to struggling small businesses, many of which were forced to close.”
“This money would have been better spent helping the businesses that were forced to close or providing comprehensive medical support for both women and children,” Smith told reporters.
Other than PPP loans, government entities that provided funds to Planned Parenthood included Medicaid, Medicare, and Children’s Health Insurance Program repayments, as well as federal loans through grants and collaborative deals, which totaled to $148.5 million.
In 2019, the report highlighted that under the Trump Administration’s Protect Life Rule, Planned Parenthood refused Title X funding, which is a federal grant system that assists with funding for family planning and reproductive health establishments.
Planned Parenthood reportedly declined Title X funding because of the rule’s requirements against abortion referrals and requested financial division from abortion providers.
Planned Parenthood’s defiance of the law and subsequent loss of Title X funding, according to the GAO, “led almost all affiliates to discontinue using family planning grants under Title X” in 2020 and 2021.
According to the report, Planned Parenthood performed 1.11 million abortions between 2019 and 2021 while additionally receiving $1.78 billion in federal funding, or an average of $592 million annually.
Planned Parenthood also owns more than 600 health facilities across the country.
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