{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.paul.senate.gov/news-sen-rand-paul-urges-support-bill-defund-planned-parenthood/", "Sen. Rand Paul Urges Support for Bill to Defund Planned Parenthood", "2015-08-03", "2015", "2015-08", "Republican", "Senate", "KY", "Rand Paul", "P000603", "www.paul.senate.gov", "paul", "https://www.paul.senate.gov/news/", "scraper", "WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2013 U.S. Senator Rand Paul delivered the following remarks on the Senate floor today urging his colleagues to support S.1881. This legislation would eliminate taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood Federation of America, while at the same time protect and preserve federal funding of women\u2019s health services provided by other eligible entities.\n\nIn July 2015, Sen. Paul introduced similar language to defund Planned Parenthood as both a stand-alone bill and an amendment to H.R.22, the Senate vehicle for the highway bill. Sen. Paul has repeatedly asked the Senate to hold a vote on both measures.\n\nA vote to take up the legislation required 60 votes for passage and failed, 53-46.\n\nBelow is the video and transcript of Sen. Paul\u2019s floor speech.\n\nCLICK HERE TO WATCH SEN. PAUL\u2019S FLOOR SPEECH\n\nTRANSCRIPT:\n\nSen. Paul: There comes a time in the history of nations when a civilized people must stand up and decide whether or not life is important, whether or not life is something special, and whether or not there\u2019s maybe something greater than just us that has to do with life.\n\nIt sickens me to me what\u2019s been going on with Planned Parenthood. Some of my first memories of my children were the ultrasound that I saw before they were born. We still keep those. We now find out, though, that this technology that can do wonders, that can save babies, you can perform surgery now in the uterus and the baby can survive, these same techniques that are being used by Planned Parenthood to manipulate the baby into a position to harvest the baby\u2019s organs.\n\nI think all America should be sickened by this, but it should also trouble us if we are a society that\u2019s not sickened by this. And I think the time has come to have a full-throated debate about this, and the time has come to end all taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood. Some will say, well, where will people get their health? We have 9,000 community health centers and 700 Planned Parenthood clinics. Difference is abortion. In fact, you can get many things at a community health center you can\u2019t get at Planned Parenthood.\n\nBut the only thing you get at Planned Parenthood that you can\u2019t get anywhere else is abortion. This debate isn\u2019t just about abortion. This debate is about little babies who haven\u2019t given their consent. It\u2019s about time we had a debate in our country about this, and it\u2019s about time we said enough is enough.\n\nThe question is, can a civilization long endure that doesn\u2019t respect life? Do we lose everything else about what makes us human if we\u2019re unwilling to protect life? Can we stand up and defend our other rights if we\u2019re not willing to stand up and defend the most basic of rights? So I come here today to ask my fellow senators to vote to defund Planned Parenthood, and I hope they will.\n\nThank you, Mr. President.\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-08T20:23:36Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.paul.senate.gov/news-sen-rand-paul-urges-support-bill-defund-planned-parenthood/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.8552251383662224, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}