Republicans in the Senate voted Thursday to defund Planned Parenthood in a move the Huffington Post calls "symbolic" and Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin—as quoted by Vice—calls a "waste of the time of the Senate." According to the Hill, the measure takes one year of Planned Parenthood's funding and puts it toward community health centers instead. It's included in a bill to repeal ObamaCare. The Huffington Post reports the bill has no chance of actually becoming law, as Obama has already promised to veto it. The vote came less than a week after a man shot up a Colorado Planned Parenthood, killing three people. "It is unconscionable that extreme politicians in Congress are doubling in their attacks on Planned Parenthood and the people who rely on us for preventive health care," Vice quotes a Planned Parenthood statement. "Enough is enough."
The Huffington Post reports the Senate rejected two separate amendments that would have kept Planned Parenthood funding intact. The first amendment would have gone even further, funding safety measures for women's health clinics around the country, according to the Hill. The second amendment—proposed by a centrist Republican senator—came three votes short. While the amendments didn't pass, they did succeed in making moderate Republicans cast an "uncomfortable vote," the Huffington Post reports. "Democrats are going to keep making it very clear exactly where we stand: with women across the country," says Sen. Patty Murray, who proposed the first amendment. Even knowing a veto loomed, Republicans wanted to take the vote to make a political statement on issues from abortion to gun control. (More Planned Parenthood stories.)
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