The Veterans Administration Medical Center in Pittsburgh.Gene J. Puskar/AP
In another assault on reproductive rights by the Trump administration, the US Department of Veterans Affairs sent out a memo on Monday announcing that it will no longer provide abortion or abortion counseling.
This change stems from a Department of Justice legal opinion on December 18 that reinstated exclusions on abortions and abortion counseling that the Biden administration had removed in 2022. That Biden-era ruling expanded abortion access for veterans in cases of rape, incest, or threats to life and health, even in states with bans.
The DOJ cited a rule the VA proposed in August that argued Biden demonstrated federal overreach by expanding abortion access just months after the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. But, according to the VA, Biden’s decision forced taxpayer funding for abortion.
“Pregnant Veterans and VA beneficiaries deserve to have access to world-class reproductive care when they need it most,” Denis McDonough, Biden’s Secretary of Veterans Affairs, said in 2022, calling it “a patient safety decision.”
The new directive, obtained by Mother Jones, states that it won’t prohibit care to “pregnant women in life-threatening circumstances, including treatment for ectopic pregnancies or miscarriages.” However, these exceptions often do not work. According to Jessica Valenti, a writer on feminism and politics, exceptions “are deliberately crafted to be impossible to use” and only exist “to make Republicans seem a little less punishing.”
Half of the states in the country protect the right to abortion. The VA’s ban will also apply in those states.
The Department of Veterans Affairs did not respond to Mother Jones’ questions about the removal of exceptions in cases of rape, incest, or health emergencies and the usurping of state laws.
The scale of this issue is significant. According to the VA’s own numbers, there are more than 700,000 family members who are eligible for its care. There are over 2.1 million women veterans and thousands of transgender men and non-binary veterans who may need abortion care.
The VA’s memo also states that employees may request to opt out of providing “any aspect of clinical care based on their sincerely held moral and religious beliefs, observances, practices, or exercises,” which could leave the door open for more discriminatory lawmaking in health care access.
For the Trump administration, that is the point. Project 2025 recommended that the Veterans Health Administration “rescind all departmental clinical policy directives that are contrary to principles of conservative governance starting with abortion services and gender reassignment surgery.” Roughly half of the president’s judicial nominees have anti-abortion records.
