GOP effort to defund Planned Parenthood fails in the Senate

Supporters of Planned Parenthood.
(Image credit: David McNew/Getty Images)

On Monday, Senate Democrats blocked a Republican effort to cut federal funding to Planned Parenthood with a mostly party-line vote of 53-46, seven votes shy of the 60 needed to advance.

The measure, sponsored by Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), was in response to videos secretly recorded by anti-abortion activists that show officials from Planned Parenthood talking about providing medical researchers with tissue from aborted fetuses. Conservatives say that the organization is doing this illegally for profit, while Planned Parenthood denies the allegations and says the videos are edited. Conservatives in the House and Senate are already saying that in the fall, they will oppose any 2016 spending bills that include federal funding for Planned Parenthood, The Associated Press reports.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.