Porter has pushed for heartbeat bills on the state level and aided in crafting the first heartbeat bills in Ohio. Heartbeat bills have been introduced and fizzled out in such conservative strongholds as Alabama, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Texas and Wyoming. Roe prohibits laws that ban abortion wholesale before the fetus is viable, at around 24 weeks. The measure is modeled after legislation that failed in Ohio that aimed to ban abortions from as early as six weeks into a pregnancy. Now, he`s making it happen | Lucia Graves Read more?The heartbeat bill is the first step to ?make America safe again? for every child whose heartbeat can be heard,? said Porter, who helped design the bill.

In 2006, the Congressional General Accountability Office concluded that the global gag rule, coupled with abstinence promotion, was impeding the global fight against HIV. And in 2011, researchers from Stanford University published striking evidence that the global gag rule had, perversely, increased abortion rates. All the failures, bureaucratic nightmares and -- yes -- increases in abortion rates will now follow the gag rule reinstatement. Laurie Garrett is a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations and a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer. We have been here twice before -- under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush -- and we know that this order often backfires, leading to increased abortion rates.

Media caption Could US overseas abortion funding ban lead to more deaths in Africa? Donald Trump`s pro-abortion funding ban has infuriated many global health organisations as they say it will unintentionally lead to more abortions and more deaths in Africa. The policy blocks US funding to overseas organisations that "support or participate in the management of a programme of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilisation". Abortion on demand can only be offered in four out of 54 African countries, according to the UN`s World Abortion Policies report. Known as the "Mexico City Policy", or global gag rule by critics, it was no surprise that he reinstated it.