U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) released the following statement honoring the event and reintroduced his Defund Planned Parenthood Act ... The Defund Planned Parenthood Act would ensure federal tax dollars aren’t going to organizations, like Planned Parenthood, to perform abortions.
Sponsor and advocate for the Defund Planned Parenthood Act to end federal funding for Planned Parenthood and similar organizations that perform abortions.
Occurrences
I will continue to bring this legislation up for a vote as opportunities on the Senate floor arise.
I have been leading the fight to prohibit all taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider and introduced legislation to do so. I will continue to bring this legislation up for a vote as opportunities on the Senate floor arise.
Evidence
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Sponsor: Sen. Paul, Rand [R-KY] (Introduced 07/24/2015). Summary: This bill prohibits federal funding of Planned Parenthood Federation of America or its affiliates.
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U.S. Senator Rand Paul today introduced legislation, S.1861, which would eliminate nearly $500 million of taxpayer funding each year to Planned Parenthood. "...Not one more taxpayer dollar should go to Planned Parenthood and I intend to make that goal a reality," Sen. Paul said.
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Sen. Paul delivered remarks on the Senate floor urging his colleagues to support S.1881. The release states he had repeatedly asked the Senate to hold a vote on the measures. "A vote to take up the legislation required 60 votes for passage and failed, 53-46."
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The question was whether debate on the motion to proceed to S. 1881, a bill to prohibit Federal funding of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, would be brought to a close. The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 53, nays 46. The presiding officer stated, "the motion is rejected."
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GovInfo bill text shows S.203 was introduced by Mr. Paul and referred to the Senate HELP Committee; the bill would prohibit federal funding for Planned Parenthood Federation of America and affiliates.
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Public Law 119-21 section 71113 bars federal Medicaid direct-spending payments to defined prohibited entities for a one-year period beginning on enactment, including qualifying reproductive-health providers that provide abortions and exceeded $800,000 in FY2023 Medicaid expenditures.
Assessments
Paul did sponsor and advocate for Defund Planned Parenthood legislation during the 2016 Senate campaign context, including introducing S.1861 in 2015 and pushing for Senate action, but the bill failed to advance and the promised broad end to federal funding was not enacted in that term. A later 2025 law imposed only a narrower, temporary one-year Medicaid payment bar for certain abortion providers, so the substantive defunding outcome was only partially achieved in a later Senate term, not fully delivered as promised.
Rand Paul sponsored S.1861 in July 2015 and publicly advocated for related defunding legislation during the 2016 Senate campaign context. However, the promised substantive outcome, ending federal funding for Planned Parenthood and similar abortion-performing organizations through the Defund Planned Parenthood Act, was not enacted. The Senate effort failed when cloture on S.1881 was rejected 53-46 in August 2015. This qualifies as a serious same-term legislative attempt, but not delivery of the promised policy outcome.