Senate blocks Republican bill to cut aid for abortion provider, setting up intense fall battle

WASHINGTON – The Senate blocked a Republican drive Monday to terminate federal funds for abortion provider Planned Parenthood, setting the stage for the Republicans to try again this fall amid higher stakes — a potential government shutdown that could echo into next year’s presidential and congressional elections.

The derailed legislation was the Republican response to videos, recorded secretly by anti-abortion activists, showing Planned Parenthood officials dispassionately discussing how they sometimes provide medical researchers with tissue from aborted fetuses. Those videos have led conservatives to accuse the group of illegally selling the organs for profit — strongly denied by Planned Parenthood — and inserted abortion and women’s health into the mix of issues to be argued in the 2016 campaign.

Planned Parenthood receives more than $500 million yearly in government funds — including state payments — more than one-third of its annual $1.3 billion in revenue. It provides contraception, testing and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases, abortion and other services for 2.7 million people annually, mostly women.

Monday’s mostly party-line vote was 53-46 to halt Democratic delays aimed at derailing the bill, seven short of the 60 votes the Republicans needed. Even so, the Republican Party is hoping to reap political gains because the videos have ignited the party’s core conservative, anti-abortion voters.

The fight is already creating heated talking points for Republican presidential candidates, who convene Thursday for their first debate of the 2016 campaign. Several of them, including Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Rand Paul of Kentucky, are calling for Congress to end Planned Parenthood’s federal payments.

In the longer term, Republican leaders are hoping that three congressional committees’ investigations, plus probes in several states and the expected release of additional videos, will produce evidence of Planned Parenthood wrongdoing and make it harder for Democrats to defend the organization. Planned Parenthood provides contraception, testing for sexually transmitted diseases and abortions in clinics from coast to coast.

Democrats’ were largely muted when the videos were first distributed, but their defence of Planned Parenthood has grown more robust in recent days. During Monday’s debate, they sounded a theme they have employed in recent elections, characterizing the GOP drive as an assault on health care for women.

The anti-abortion Center for Medical Progress has so far released four videos in which people posing as representatives of a company that purchases fetal tissue converse with Planned Parenthood officials. The videos have been especially controversial because of the casual descriptions by the Planned Parenthood officials of the abortion procedures they use to obtain tissue, and because some of the videos show close-ups of fetal organs in laboratories.

The centre and some of its Republican supporters have said the videos show that Planned Parenthood sells the tissue for profit, which is illegal under federal law.

Planned Parenthood says the videos are selectively edited and that the organization only recovers costs of the procedures — which is legal — and only gives the tissue to researchers with a mother’s advance consent and in fewer than five states.

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