The Trump administration has rolled back a Biden-era policy that allowed the Department of Veterans Affairs to provide limited abortion counseling and abortion services through VA health care, including in cases of rape or incest, according to internal agency communications and a legal opinion issued by the Department of Justice.
The shift follows a Dec. 18 memorandum authored by Joshua Craddock, a deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, which concluded the VA does not have legal authority under existing federal law to provide abortion services to veterans or their dependents.
The Dec. 18 legal opinion revoked a Biden-era Office of Legal Counsel interpretation that the VA had relied on to provide abortions for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest, or when a pregnancy threatened the “life and health” of the patient, according to reporting by The Hill.
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