GOP lawmakers in Congress will make their first explicit move Monday to strip federal funding from Planned Parenthood after a series of undercover videos raised questions about its practice of harvesting tissue for research from aborted fetuses.

The Monday evening procedural vote on a Senate bill to immediately halt funding to the group is expected to fail. Democrats have vowed to filibuster the bill, and Republicans have thus far been unable to peel off enough support to counter it.

But GOP leaders have made defunding Planned Parenthood a centerpiece of their agenda going into the summer congressional recess, and some Republicans have said they are willing to force a government shutdown in October if federal support to the group is not severed.

“I think most Americans don’t want their tax dollars going to this,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), a presidential candidate and co-sponsor of the Senate bill, said Sunday in a CNN interview. “When something is so morally repugnant to so many people, why should tax dollars go to this?” (...)