Trump Is Going After Abortion Access for Veterans

“[The rule] was intended to prevent federal overreach and return to states control over the provision of abortion services,” the proposal states. “Yet, the last administration used Dobbs to do the exact opposite of preventing overreach, creating a purported federal entitlement to abortion for veterans where none had existed before and without regard to state law.” Yes…entitlement to reproductive healthcare is the point.

From 1999 to 2022, the VA’s benefits package excluded almost all abortion services, as well as abortion counseling, from veterans and their family members.

In the first year after the policy went into effect, the VA provided or covered at least 88 abortions: nine because it risked the life of the mother, and 15 pregnancies that resulted from rape. The others were performed because it risked the mother’s health, which garnered public outcry from conservative lawmakers who said it violated the Hyde Amendment—which bars federal funds from being used to provide abortion care.

Over a dozen states have near or complete bans on abortions, and these happen to be the states where more than half of all women veterans live, according to the National Partnership for Women & Families. This leaves the VA as the only place they could have received any abortion services at all. Sarah Outterson, the chief federal legislative counsel for Policy and Advocacy at the Center for Reproductive Rights, told The Intercept that pregnancy is “riskier” for veterans who suffer from higher rates of sexual assault and PTSD. She also said the proposal seems to be the administration’s first attempt at a national abortion ban. 

In April, Rep. Maxine Dexter (D-Oregon) led 130 House Democrats in signing a letter opposing the rule change, stating that denying veterans healthcare is cruel and dangerous. Last week, she told The Intercept the proposal was a betrayal. “As a physician, I trained at the VA, where a sign at the entrance read: ‘The price of freedom is visible here.’ Our veterans sacrificed everything for this country, and in return, we promised them the best care possible,” Dexter wrote in a statement. “For Trump to reinstate a complete ban on abortion care and counseling at the VA—even in cases of rape, incest, or to save the life or health of the mother—is an utter betrayal of that promise.”

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