The Department of Justice has reversed the Biden administration’s decision to allow Veterans Affairs doctors to perform abortions on the taxpayers’ dime.
After the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the Biden administration told Veterans Affairs doctors that they could perform abortions, even though federal law prohibits taxpayers from funding abortion.
In 2022, the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel advised that federal law authorizes the Department of Veterans Affairs and its employees to provide abortion services.
Trump’s Office of Legal Counsel on Dec. 18 withdrew this opinion, instead saying that the VA may not provide abortion services.
In 1992, Congress passed the Veterans Health Care Act, amending Title 38 of the U.S. Code to expand and improve health care for female veterans. The law orders the VA to provide “[g]eneral reproductive health care” to women, but it expressly prohibits “infertility services, abortions, or pregnancy care (including prenatal and delivery care), except for such care relating to a pregnancy that is complicated or in which the risks of complication are increased by a service-connected condition.”
The Biden administration removed the exclusion on abortion counseling and established exceptions to the exclusion on abortions.
Deputy Assistant Attorney General Josh Craddock wrote that existing law “unambiguously commands that VA may not provide abortions when furnishing medical care under 38 U.S.C. § 1710 or any other provision in chapter 17 of Title 38.”
“Nothing about our interpretation of section 106 undermines VA’s authority to provide infertility services or authorized pregnancy care, however,” Craddock wrote.
The VA announced in August that it reversed the policy allowing taxpayer-funded abortion services to be provided to veterans.
The VA said it will return its medical package and Civilian Health and Medical Program benefits to the time before the 2022 agency rule.
“It is without question that VA has the authority to bar provision of abortion services through the VA medical benefits package to veterans,” the memo read.
