VA Proposes to Reverse Abortion Policies

The Veterans Affairs Bureau (VA) is looking to end the current policy under the Biden administration that allows for publicly funded abortion services and counseling in government healthcare settings.

This new proposal, submitted on Monday, aims to reinstate a policy from 1999, which excluded abortion and related counseling from taxpayer-funded benefits, except in cases where a mother’s life is in danger. The Biden administration lifted this exclusion in September 2022, following the Supreme Court’s DOBBS v. Jackson decision, which sparked increased advocacy for abortion rights.

A VA spokesperson explained to a news outlet that before the changes made in 2022, both Democratic and Republican administrations upheld laws that kept abortion services off-limits for the VA. “The proposed changes will bring back bipartisan policies from before the Biden era and align with historically established norms,” the spokesperson added.

VA Secretary Doug Collins indicated earlier this year that the policies from the Biden administration were under examination. “We’re ensuring our decisions benefit veterans and the care we provide,” he noted at that time.

Under Biden’s rules, the VA allowed for some medical benefits related to cases of rape, incest, and options for pregnancy counseling. The new rules seek to reset the VA’s medical benefit package to its previous state, arguing that the earlier changes were politically motivated rather than grounded in medical science. The proposed change aims to restore the VA’s essential role in providing healthcare for veterans.

This decision reflects an intention, seen during the Trump administration, to remove what some consider leftist priorities from federal agencies that should operate independently. The VA also ended a program supplying cross-sex hormones and gender-affirming prosthetics to transgender veterans, a move Collins claimed could save “literally millions of dollars.”