The effort to defund Planned Parenthood, following the viral videos showing Planned Parenthood officials discussing the sale of aborted baby body parts, in the Senate failed Monday in a vote of 53 to 46.
Republicans needed 60 votes to proceed, but GOP presidential candidate Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) appears to have been absent, contributing to the bill’s failure.
Graham was in New Hampshire Monday for a candidate forum held by the New Hampshire Union Leader and C-SPAN.
Fellow GOP presidential candidates and Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL), Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Rand Paul (R-KY) were present for the vote and attended the candidate forum via satellite. Rubio, Cruz and Paul voted to defund Planned Parenthood.
Breitbart News reached out to Graham’s campaign for confirmation and comment about missing the Senate vote Monday.
The campaign did not respond directly to Breitbart News’ inquiry but instead issued the following statement from Graham:
I wholly support the defunding of Planned Parenthood today and in the future. As president, I pledge I would never send a budget to Capitol Hill that contains a penny of funding for Planned Parenthood. Abortion related services comprise over 94 percent of Planned Parenthood’s business. We can kill their funding while maintaining a robust commitment to providing access to important preventative medicine and prenatal services.
Organizations that harvest body parts from unborn children is neither planned parenthood nor right and should not receive any support from the Federal Government. I’m running for president to create a culture of respect for human life and look forward to not only eliminating funding for Planned Parenthood, but also ending abortions at 20 weeks when a child can feel pain. The United States is one of seven nations that allows such a practice and as President I would make sure we are no longer part of that club.
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