Department of Veterans Affairs quietly implements abortion ban
The Department of Veterans Affairs has implemented an abortion ban following a December 18 memo from the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel, authored by Deputy Assistant Attorney General Joshua Craddock, which declared the Biden-era rule allowing limited abortion services to veterans and dependents invalid. The VA, serving over 9 million veterans and beneficiaries, immediately complied with the directive, as confirmed by VA Press Secretary Pete Kasperowicz on Tuesday, effectively circumventing the standard federal rule-making process that would have required publication of a final rule in the Federal Register before implementation.
The ban prohibits abortion services except in life-threatening circumstances, including ectopic pregnancies and miscarriages, though abortion rights advocates characterize this exception as intentionally vague and inadequate to protect pregnant patients and medical professionals. Women constitute the fastest-growing veteran population at over 2 million, with approximately one in three reporting sexual assault or harassment during military service; more than half of women veterans of reproductive age live in states with abortion bans or likely restrictions, meaning VA services provided access they could not obtain locally.
Abortion rights organizations and veterans’ advocates condemned the policy. Fatima Goss Graves, president and CEO of the National Women’s Law Center, stated that the Trump administration’s action “confirms what we’ve always known: its promise to leave abortion to the states was a lie” and that “no one is safe from their anti-abortion crusade, not even our nation’s veterans.” Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, criticized the ban as “callous and inhumane,” while Lindsay Church, co-founder of Minority Veterans of America, called it “a direct attack on veterans’ freedoms, including our right to make our own health care decisions.”
The Trump administration filed a proposed reversal of the Biden-era abortion policy in August 2022, which had been implemented following the Supreme Court’s June 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade. The accelerated implementation through DOJ memo bypasses standard federal rule-making procedures that would have extended the timeline by months, avoiding publication of a final rule in the Federal Register and the standard 30-day implementation period. VA Secretary Doug Collins, who signaled opposition to the policy during his confirmation hearing, has been vocal about reversing abortion access for veterans.
The ban aligns with Project 2025, the Trump administration’s policy guidebook, which recommended reversing the VA abortion rule as part of a broader anti-abortion agenda. This action represents one of the nation’s strictest abortion restrictions given its scope, particularly impacting veterans in states where abortion is otherwise banned or heavily restricted.