Despite the gruesome videos featuring medical personnel discussing the sale of body parts from aborted babies—including the Center for Medical Progress’s claim that some of these babies may have been born alive and left to die—the Senate, in a 46-53 vote, failed Monday afternoon to reach the 60-vote threshold required to advance a bill what would have defunded about 700 Planned Parenthood clinics nationwide. The bill was sponsored by freshman senator Joni Ernst. She had this to say about her bill:

“There would be absolutely no reduction in overall federal funding available to support women’s health,” said Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa, the bill’s primary sponsor. “Community health centers provide more comprehensive services, regardless of a person’s ability to pay.”

So, despite Democrat senators’ protestations otherwise, the funding would have gone to community health centers that provide health services predominately to poor women and “are banned from offering abortions at all.” Oh, the horror! The irony, of course, that the centers that would have received our tax dollars are, according to some Democrat senators, “overburdened,” due in large part to ObamaCare, was apparently lost on Senator Harry Reid:

“There aren’t enough community health centers,” said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid. “To increase their ability to meet the current demand and to throw in a few more women who would be knocked out of Planned Parenthood — it would be millions of women — is wrong.”

Weird. I thought ObamaCare was supposed to take care of all that…but I digress.

So, without further ado, here are the 45 cowards (more on a certain Majority Leader’s vote in a bit) who voted to keep fully funding Planned Parenthood, even though we now know via the undercover videos that it sells, for profit, baby body parts like a commodity. You know, like car parts. Or cane sugar:

Courtesy senate.gov

Notice anyone missing? Yep. Lindsey Graham, currently running for POTUS.

Of course the truth-challenged Hillary Clinton has wasted no time capitalizing-slash-obfuscating the issue, one again proving her willingness, just like Planned Parenthood, to exploit anything and everything in her insatiable quest for power:

Meanwhile, some pundits are touting the fact that two Democrats broke from their party and voted to defund the abortion-machine that is Planned Parenthood: Senators Joe Manchin and Joe Donnelly.

“Until these allegations have been answered and resolved, I do not believe that taxpayer money should be used to fund this organization,” Manchin said in a statement. “Instead, those funds should be sent to other health-care providers, including community health centers, which provide important women’s health-care services.”

Call me a hopeless cynic, but somehow I doubt that courage motivated these two “moderate” Democrats. Would they have voted the same way if their votes had actually counted?

Still, in what would seem a small glimmer of hope, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell appears, at least on social media, unfazed by the defeat:

.@SenateMajLdr McConnell's vote on #PlannedParenthood defunding bill allows him to bring up the bill up for a revote. #SenateProcedure

— Sen. McConnell Press (@McConnellPress) August 3, 2015

…and his spokesman offered this statement to the Blaze:

Leader McConnell is a strong supporter of the legislation and in fact was a co-sponsor when the bill was introduced last week. Under Senate procedure, when a cloture motion to proceed to the measure fails to pass with the required 60 votes, the Majority Leader may switch his ‘yes’ vote to ‘no,’ which allows him bring it up for reconsideration at a future time. Leader McConnell would have voted in favor of the bill but in order to preserve his right to bring it up again, he simply changed his vote to ‘no.’

Luckily, at least one governor isn’t waiting for the Senate to act:

#PlannedParenthood-Skandal: Louisiana Gov. Jindal canceled Planned Parenthood’s Medicaid contract with his state!http://t.co/342WPkW6ew

— CDL_aktiv (@CDL_aktiv) August 4, 2015

It was never very likely that Planned Parenthood would actually be defunded. After all, many Democrat pols receive campaign contributions from them. The pact is entirely bastardized: We’re taxed. Portions of our taxes fund Planned Parenthood whose services include abortion—abhorrent to the very foundations of conservatism, not to mention Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit—and then Planned Parenthood contributes to Democrats who then vote to uphold their subsidies. It’s a circle of unadulterated evil. And the status quo is staying put. At least for now. Let’s hope McConnell is serious. I, for one, won’t be holding my breath waiting for the blowhards to keep their promises.