WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats successfully blocked a GOP attempt to de-fund Planned Parenthood Monday night, but Republicans viewed the vote as their opening salvo against the abortion provider.
A measure to re-direct about $500 million from the group to community health centers passed 53-46 — but short of the 60-vote threshold needed to advance.
Prompting the vote was the release of disturbing videos from anti-abortion activists that purport to show Planned Parenthood executives negotiating with undercover agents posing as business people trying to buy aborted fetal body parts for research.
Planned Parenthood maintains the videos were edited and insisted they handled their fetal tissue donation program in accordance with the law without making profit.
But the graphic images of fetal body parts being poked in Petri dishes — including one staffer exclaiming, “Another boy!” — spilled over into the Senate floor debate.
Warning: Video is graphic
“This is the beginning of the fight to regain America’s conscience,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) exclaimed. He condemned the “caviler attitude” of Planned Parenthood staff toward harvesting fetal body parts and the “abhorrent and disgusting practice that we cannot ignore.”
Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) added: “It’s a baby. I cannot support an organization that would put a dollar amount on body parts.”
But Democrats and the White House defended the organization as a vital provider of women’s health services such as annual exams, contraception and cancer screenings.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) called the effort at de-funding a “right-wing attack” to take away a woman’s right to control her own body.
“Women everywhere are sick and tired of it,” Warren said.
“A vote today is not a vote to de-fund abortions, it’s a vote to de-fund … basic health care for millions of women.”
After an impassioned floor speech from Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) on valuing human life and childbirth, Sen. Barbara Boxer chimed in.
“I gave birth to two premature kids and I just don’t like lectures by men about what it’s like,” Boxer (D-Calif.) said.
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) speaks at a news conference on the funding for Planned Parenthood.Reuters“Keep Uncle Sam out of my private life. … Families will make these decisions.”
Lankford retorted: “I’m a dad of two daughters. I had something to do with the birth as well.”
While Planned Parenthood’s funding survived another day, the real fight could come when the House returns from August recess and must pass budget bills to keep the government open.
House conservatives are threatening to tie Planned Parenthood de-funding to spending bills.
That could set up a repeat of a 2013 government shutdown over a GOP attempt to defund ObamaCare.
