DailyWire.com – The Biden administration will begin offering “abortion counseling” and, in some cases, abortions to veterans through Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) hospitals — regardless of state law — in a move aimed at the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, the VA said Friday.
The rule says some state laws are “laws not founded in science or based on evidence,” and asserts that “State and local laws and regulations that would prevent VA health care professionals from providing needed abortion-related care, as permitted by this rule, are preempted.”
In a statement, it said, “VA is taking steps to guarantee Veterans and other VA beneficiaries abortion-related care anywhere in the country.”
Since 1999, the VA has been banned from providing abortion or abortion counseling. The interim rule will become effective immediately, even though it has not completed the public-comment process, it said.
“As abortion bans come into force across the country, veterans in many States are no longer assured access to abortion services in their communities, even when those services are needed,” the rule says.
“Unless VA removes its existing prohibitions on abortion-related care and makes clear that needed abortion-related care is authorized, these veterans will face serious threats to their life and health.”
The rule spends much of its 40 pages making a complicated legal argument that the Department does not need Congress’s authority to begin offering abortions.
It also says the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits federal dollars from funding abortions, only applies to the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education.
The rule says that abortion counseling will be provided in all cases, and that abortions will be provided only in certain circumstances, like where the “health” of the mother is jeopardized or the pregnancy is the result of rape.
However, the “rape and incest” terms will be broadly defined and enforced … READ MORE.
