WASHINGTON -- Two weeks after the U.S. House of Representatives voted to strip federal funding for Planned Parenthood, the organization's leaders and supporters amassed in Washington, D.C., Tuesday to ensure that the measure doesn't pass the Senate.

Their goal: to push back against what they say is an ideological assault by Republicans on reproductive rights disguised as concern over budget.

Elaine Rose, chief executive of Planned Parenthood Votes! Washington, was among those who arrived on Capitol Hill to lobby against an amendment sponsored by Rep. Mike Pence, R-Indiana, to eliminate $317 milliion in funding for reproductive health services. Planned Parenthood received about a quarter of that money, which it uses to provide contraceptives, safe-sex counseling, cancer screening and other health services to women. The so-called Title X money is not used for abortions.

Nonetheless, Pence, who favors overturning Roe v. Wade to make abortions illegal, has said he hopes that defunding Planned Parenthood would prevent it from providing abortions. The House passed Pence's amendment by 240-185, with seven Republicans opposed and 10 Democrats voting in favor. Members of Washington's delegation voted along party lines.

Rose said that the spending cuts would deny millions of low-income women access to family-planning services and other basic health care. In Washington, 60 percent of patients at Planned Parenthood have no other medical provider, she said.

Rose said the money Planned Parenthood receives from taxpayers supplements its revenue from private insurers, fundraising and other sources. The federal dollars, she said, actually saves the government money. One way it does that is by averting unplanned pregnancies, many of which otherwise would cost millions of dollars under Medicaid.

The GOP's agenda "is not at all a fiscal argument," Rose said. "What the Republicans ultimately want is they don't want birth control."