Pompeo expands abortion 'gag rule' overseas as he targets 'global abortion ...

Pompeo expands abortion 'gag rule' as Trump's State Department will stop funding foreign groups that pass U.S. money to 'the global abortion industry'

By David Martosko, U.s. Political Editor For Dailymail.com

Published: 14:44 GMT, 26 March 2019 | Updated: 14:50 GMT, 26 March 2019

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Secretary of State Mike Pompeo put new pressure Tuesday on overseas abortion providers by announcing an expansion of the U.S. policy that stops taxpayer dollars from funding foreign family-planning clinics that terminate pregnancies.

Despite the Trump administration's 2017 readoption of what's known as the Mexico City Policy, officials found that some nongovernmental organizations that don't perform abortions were using State Department grants to make pass-through payments to those that do.

Pompeo called those arrangements 'back-door funding schemes and end-runs around our policy.'

Tuesday's clampdown, he told reporters in a brief press conference, is a bid to 'continue to meet our critical global health goals, including providing health care for women, while refusing to subsidize the killing of unborn babies.'

'As before, we'll continue to refuse to provide assistance to foreign NGOs who perform or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning,' he said, adding that the State Department also 'will refuse to provide assistance to foreign NGOs that give financial support to other foreign groups in the global abortion industry.'

Opponents of the Mexico City Policy call it a 'global gag rule,' arguing that it prevents U.S.-funded groups from even discussing the

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