Rand Paul Continues Battle Against Planned Parenthood

A bill to prohibit federal funding of Planned Parenthood may have failed to advance in the Senate on August 3 (receiving just 53 of the 60 votes needed to involve cloture and allow a vote on the legislation) but Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has not given up his quest to find other ways to defund the nation’s largest abortion provider.

 

The day after the failed procedural vote, when Fox News’ America’s Newsroom host Bill Hemmer asked Paul what his backup plan was, Paul replied:

 

I’ve always voted to defund Planned Parenthood and will continue to do so. I think the power of the purse is something we should use. In fact that’s a congressional prerogative and the problem is we haven’t really tried hard enough. So I’ll keep pressing on. We’ll try to attach it to appropriations bills. The thing is, that it is the responsibility; it’s not unusual for Congress to give rules to the President on how to spend money. That’s what we’re supposed to do.

 

After some back-and-forth discussion between Hemmer and Paul, during which Paul said he would not intentionally use this issue to shut down the government, but that Democrats might do exactly that if they refused to pass funding bills with anti-Planned Parenthood funding provisions in them

 

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