Planned Parenthood, the largest recipient of federal Title X Family Planning funds, performed more than 250,000 abortions in 2005 alone, Pence says. The organization gets nearly a third of its $1 billion annual budget from the federal government, he adds.

“It’s alarming to people,” Pence says.

Current law prohibits the use of Title X family planning funds “in programs where abortion is a method of family planning.” Those regulations require some form of separation between federally-funded family planning services and abortions. However, the current regulations do not contain a descriptive standard of what constitutes “separation.” They only require the level of separation to be more than “mere bookkeeping”

Pence says many groups take advantage of those vague requirements.

“Money is fungible,” Pence complains. “They don’t use that money for abortions, but use it to cover other things to free up money to promote and provide abortions. Separation of accounting records and separation of facilities within the same building is not enough.”

Pence points out that his bill exempts hospitals and similar institutions and does not eliminate any federal family-planning funds.

“My bill is not about denying family planning funds,” Pence tells Newsmax. “There is a distinction with a difference among many of my constituents, many of whom will support a woman’s right to an abortion but not make [the taxpayer] pay for it.”

In seeking strict adherence to the law that keeps family-planning money from funding abortions, Pence says he thinks it is time that U.S. domestic policy regarding aligns with U.S. foreign policy on the same issue.

Under the so-called “Mexico City Policy,” the U.S. government precisely restricts funding for abortion providers overseas.

“I think we’ve got a large number of members that believe that we should have what amounts to a domestic Mexico City policy,” Pence says.