WASHINGTON — House GOP leaders have summoned their divided conference for a make-or-break discussion on how to fight taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood without having the battle lead to a government shutdown next week.

In the wake of moves by the Senate’s top Republican to advance a stopgap spending bill free of the dispute over Planned Parenthood, House GOP leaders may be ready to plot the same course.

Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and his leadership team have for some time been urging lawmakers to consider alternatives to using a must-pass governmentwide funding bill as a means to carry the battle against Planned Parenthood to President Barack Obama. They’ve met resistance from tea party Republicans and outside groups that advocated for the 2013 partial government shutdown over implementation of Obama’s health care law.

Today’s meeting is likely to center on immediate action to use a special filibuster-proof budget bill to send legislation defunding Planned Parenthood to Obama’s desk for the first time — rather than a futile bid to attach the anti-Planned Parenthood measure to a stopgap spending bill. The temporary measure is needed to avoid a shutdown at midnight Wednesday. It would fund the government through Dec. 11.

In the Senate, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., offered his bipartisan measure following a decisive vote blocking a GOP-backed bill that would have stripped Planned Parenthood of its taxpayer funding while keeping the government running through Dec. 11.

The vote was 52-47 against the measure, 13 votes shy of the 60 required to overcome a filibuster led by Democrats. Eight Republicans, several of them supporters of abortion rights, voted with 42 Democrats and two independents.

McConnell has for almost a year promised Republicans controlling Congress won’t repeat the government shutdown of two years ago.

The White House signaled Obama would sign the measure, called a continuing resolution or CR, into law — if the House steps aside from the fight tea party Republicans want over “defunding” Planned Parenthood.

“I think we all know we’re going to have a clean CR,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska.