The Trump administration aims to bar U.S. veterans from receiving abortions at Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals in cases of incest, rape or when the pregnancy puts their life at risk.
The move would revoke abortion access for vets and eligible family members expanded in 2022 under the Biden administration. The expansion included states that ban abortion.
At the time, VA said those bans posed "urgent risks" to pregnant veterans' lives.
On Friday, the Trump administration called the 2022 rule change "inappropriate" and "legally questionable," according to The Washington Post. Conservative opponents of federal funding for any abortion-related services hailed the move.
A VA spokesperson said the change would bring VA "back in line with historical norms" and called the current policy "politically motivated."
Public comment on the proposed rule change will be accepted through Sept. 3, and a final rule could go into effect soon after.
In the meantime, the VA said it will continue to care for pregnant patients whose lives are at risk.
Minority Veterans of America opposes the proposed rule. Its director, Lindsay Church, predicts it will dissuade vets from getting VA care.
"If you were a veteran, what would you choose?" Church said to The Post. "I wouldn't choose the institution that told me that I absolutely have to be dying. I would go anywhere else."
From 1999 to 2022, nearly all abortions and abortion counseling for vets and their spouses, children and others covered by VA benefits were excluded from coverage.
Biden's move was among a handful of strategies officials could deploy to safeguard their access to abortion after Roe v. Wade was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The protection applied only in rare cases, however, according to The Post.
The VA mirrored U.S. Defense Department policy. It provides for funding or performing abortions for service members and beneficiaries but only in cases of rape, incest or to save the mother's life.
Biden's VA called it "unconscionable" that vets lacked access to the "same critical services" provided through the Defense Department policy.
The VA policy was geared to vets in states hostile to abortion, especially in the South, where the procedure was most severely restricted in Roe's wake.
Some of those states' legislators attempted to bypass that guidance, vowing to punish VA workers who performed abortions in defiance of state law. That led the Justice Department to say it would defend VA medical workers, no matter their location.
The VA estimated in 2022 that it would provide more than 1,000 abortions a year under the Biden rule change. The Trump administration's proposal said the actual number is fewer than 150 a year.
Its proposal says the VA will continue to treat vets who miscarry or have an ectopic pregnancy, in which the embryo implants outside the uterus. Ectopic pregnancies are never viable and threaten the mother's life.
The administration's proposal has been in the works for months, The Post reported. In April, a letter signed by more than 100 Democratic lawmakers urged VA Secretary Douglas Collins to keep the Biden-era policy on the books.
A Christian legal group that opposes abortion, the Alliance Defending Freedom, met with VA officials July 9.
A copy of a written submission posted on the Federal Register argues that the Biden rule change was an instance of federal overreach. In a cost analysis of VA abortions, the alliance stated that "pro-abortion policies place our nation's labor force -- and our entire economic future -- at great risk."
More information
There's more about federal coverage of abortion at the health policy organization KFF.
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