December 24, 2025
The Biden-Harris administration predicted the agency would provide close to 1,000 abortions per year following the backlash from the 2022 Dobbs decision but data shows the VA has provided 140 per year since.
In another move to erase all Biden-era policies, the Trump administration secretly banned the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) from issuing abortions and all related services to veterans and their dependents — including those who are victims of rape and incest, The Hill reports.
In a Dec. 18 memo from Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) Joshua Craddock, the VA was ordered to stop all abortion services under any provision of the law. The memo pulled back on a 2022 policy that permitted abortions for those who became pregnant as a result of rape or incest, or if a pregnancy risked the life of the person seeking an abortion.
The OLC argued that the rule, as a result of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, dissolving Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, overstepped the law.
Craddock called the language “unambiguous,” according to Fox News, after highlighting the Veterans Health Care Act, which makes clear that the VA is restricted to providing abortion services only if the pregnancy carries risks. He highlighted a footnote reading: “life-threatening circumstances, including treatment for ectopic pregnancies or miscarriages.” Veterans Affairs Press Secretary Peter Kasperowicz says the VA is complying immediately.
The Biden-Harris administration predicted the agency would provide close to 1,000 abortions per year following the backlash from the Dobbs decision. Still, data shows the VA has provided 140 per year since 2022. Regardless of the numbers, abortion advocates have slammed the policy change, labeling it an insult to veterans. “Veterans deserve dignity and respect that includes the freedom to make their own healthcare decisions,” Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, said, calling the ban “callous and inhumane.”
While half of the U.S. protects the right to abortion, the new VA ban will now apply in those states, as the VA operates dozens of medical centers across the country. Back in 2022, former Secretary of Veterans Affairs Denis McDonough called the policy “a patient safety decision” as “pregnant Veterans and VA beneficiaries deserve to have access to world-class reproductive care when they need it most.”
As Craddock may feel the exceptions are helpful, feminist and politics expert Jessica Valenti says expectations “are deliberately crafted to be impossible to use” and used only “to make Republicans seem a little less punishing.”
President and CEO at the Center for Reproductive Rights, Nancy Northup, feels the ban is just another way of President Donald Trump failing to keep his promises. “Veterans risked their lives to defend our safety and freedom–– and now the Trump Administration is taking away theirs,” Northup said. “President Trump said he would leave abortion to the states, but he continues to seize new opportunities to restrict it nationally.”
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