Veterans Are 'Guinea Pigs' in Trump's First National Abortion Ban Experiment

The Intercept

14 hours ago

Ash Wallis knows she likely wouldn't survive another pregnancy. Doctors said as much years earlier after she suffered a pulmonary embolism following a miscarriage, and got a second blood clot. Getting pregnant again isn't a risk she is willing or able to take.
'I have two sons,' said Wallis. 'I don't want to leave them motherless.'
Wallis, 40, begged her health care provider to give her an IUD — her best chance at preventing another pregnancy and protecting her life. But her provider, the Department of Veterans Affairs, refused to cover the procedure. Despite three years of service in the Army, Wallis was forced to pay out of pocket at a local clinic.
'The risks of me getting pregnant and there being a significant health issue were too much risk for me to gamble on,' she said.
Access to reproductive care and abortion has long been a problem for those who rely on VA care. But a policy change by the Trump administration stands to make reproductive health for service members and veterans even worse. Last week, the administration posted a proposed rule for VA facilities that would severely narrow access to abortion — eliminating exceptions for health, rape, and incest, and only allowing the procedure in situations deemed to threaten the life of the mother. The rule would also ban any counseling for abortion through the VA. The proposed policy now enters a mandatory 30-day comment period, after which it can go into effect.
Experts told The Intercept that the rule change will have devastating consequences for the millions of service members and veterans reliant on health care through the VA, as well as their families.
'It's the worst-case scenario,' said Rachel Fey, vice president of policy and strategic partnerships at Power to Decide, a nonprofit focused on reproductive and sexual health.
The Department of Veterans Affairs has long excluded abortion care and abortion counseling from its medical benefits package, with a narrow exception for the 'life of the mother.' That changed in 2022 when the Biden administration, recognizing the danger posed to veterans and service members by the Supreme Court's Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision, instituted a new rule allowing for abortion counseling and abortion care in an expanded list of circumstances.
It's this Biden-era change that is under attack by the Trump administration. The administration describes the proposed policy shift as a return to form.
'Prior to the Biden Administration's politically motivated change in 2022, federal law and longstanding precedent across Democrat and Republican administrations prevented VA from providing abortions and abortion counseling,' wrote Gary Kunich, a Veterans Affairs spokesperson, in a statement to the Intercept.
Fey and other reproductive health experts had anticipated the Trump administration would institute an abortion ban at the VA. But they told The Intercept that this version is particularly draconian considering the dramatic fall-off in abortion access following the Dobbs decision.
'This new policy would be one of the strictest abortion bans in the country, and for veterans living in the 12 states that ban abortion, it would further close off what may be their only opportunity to access urgently needed abortion care,' said Liz McCaman Taylor, senior federal policy counsel at the Center for Reproductive Rights, in a statement. 'For veterans living in these states, they may now be forced to carry pregnancies to term even if they were raped or the pregnancy puts their health in jeopardy.'
The proposed rule would 'reinstate the full exclusion on abortions and abortion counseling.' Unlike under the Biden rule, which allowed for abortion counseling and abortion care to protect the health of the mother or in cases of rape and incest, the new proposed rule only includes a vague, narrow exception for 'life of the mother.'
'For the avoidance of doubt, the proposed rule would make clear that the exclusion for abortion does not apply 'when a physician certifies that the life of the mother would be endangered if the fetus were carried to term,'' wrote the administration in a summary of the draft proposal.
However, in a potentially complicating line, the administration wrote: 'Taken together, claims in the prior administration's rule that abortions throughout pregnancy are needed to save the lives of pregnant women are incorrect.'
Jaclyn Dean, director of congressional relations, reproductive health, at the National Partnership for Women & Families, said that the lack of medical clarity around when doctors are allowed to intervene is going to cost lives. 'If I'm a doctor for the VA,' said Dean, 'I'm very confused about what I'm legally allowed to do.'
Fey said her organization, Power to Decide, was 'not aware of any circumstances' where the VA covered abortion care under the life exception in place before the Biden rule. 'There was always sort of supposed to be this very, very narrow life exception, but similar to what's happening now in the post-Dobbs world, we're seeing that those life exceptions don't work in practice,' she said.
Lindsay Church, executive director of Minority Veterans of America, said the counseling ban adds another layer of risk because providers are prevented from even discussing the option of abortion until it may be too late.
'Good luck if you get to a place where you're dying,' said Church, 'because you can't get abortion counseling before that. And that, to me, is insulting. Not only that, but it could have deadly consequences.'
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The counseling ban also means veterans or active-duty service members referred to the Veterans Affairs administration for care after being sexually assaulted can't discuss abortion as an option with their provider.
'We already know that women veterans experience Military Sexual Trauma at alarming rates, and many of us continue to fight battles long after our service ends,' said Stephanie Gattas, founder of the Pink Berets, which offers support for women veterans struggling with PTSD, military sexual assault, and other mental health issues.
Over 8,000 service members, who can also be referred to the VA for care, reported being sexually assaulted last year. And nearly 500 people reported being sexually assaulted while on a VA campus last year, according to Church. Both numbers are likely a severe undercount.
'The military community is wrought with sexual violence,' said Church. 'Now, if you get raped and become pregnant … because of assault at the Department of Veterans Affairs, they won't help you.'
Sylvia Andersh, a former service member who worked at Veterans Affairs hospitals as a nurse, called the lack of exceptions for rape 'cruel.'
'My faith in humanity has been quite tested with the fact that they're willing to blatantly hurt women,' said Andersh.
For Wallis, who was sexually assaulted while serving in the military, the lack of rape exceptions is especially troubling. 'It feels like being spit in my face,' she said.
'I wrote a check up to and including my life for this country, and I'm not provided equal access to care,' Wallis said.
Wallis also worries that this new policy could increase suicidal ideation among service members. 'An unexpected pregnancy, whether it's due to rape, incest, or contraceptive failure, doesn't matter what the cause is,' she said, 'it increases suicidal ideation, and in the lack of access to care, you add that in, and that risk increases further.'
The biggest impact is going to fall on veterans and service members living in states with abortion bans, experts told The Intercept. The Department of Veterans Affairs is the largest integrated health care system in the United States, serving 2 million women veterans, over 400,000 of whom live in states with abortion bans.
'We were living in a much different world the last time this total ban was in effect.'
Though the Trump administration insists the policy change would be a return to standard VA practice, Taylor, of Center for Reproductive Rights, points out that the landscape has changed following the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision.
'We were living in a much different world the last time this total ban was in effect. This is the first time there has been a total abortion ban in VA health care facilities since Roe v. Wade was overturned,' said Taylor. 'Before Roe fell, if a veteran couldn't get an abortion at a VA health care facility, they could seek one elsewhere in their state. Now, abortion is banned in many states, and over 100 clinics have closed, meaning veterans living in those states will be totally out of options.'
Wallis said she feels as if the administration is testing how far it can restrict access to care, pointing to the abortion ban and new restrictions on gender-affirming care at the VA.
'We're the guinea pigs they want to test what they're able to do to the general public,' she said. 'I truly feel like they're testing what they want to do with the rest of the country on us, and it's scary to me.'