Ms. Donaldson is a lawyer specializing in veterans' issues and a licensed master social worker.
I once represented a veteran who was raped during her military service. She was no longer on active duty by the time she realized she was pregnant. Her health care thus fell under the purview of the Department of Veterans Affairs.
It was 2005, and at the time, the V.A. didn't offer abortions. My client did not have health insurance or the means to pay for an abortion. She told me she carried the pregnancy to term and then quietly put the child up for adoption.
The experience of giving birth to the product of her rape shattered her. She barely remembers where she gave birth. She just hoped the baby was safe.
The trauma derailed her. I represented her, 14 years later, as she sought to obtain legally mandated disability benefits from the V.A. We won. These days, she's back on her feet and rebuilding her life. (I still get a "merry Christmas" text from her every year.) But I've never forgotten the anger that I felt when she told me that she wasn't able to get an abortion when she needed one.
The V.A. is one of the largest health care providers in America, and women are the fastest-growing population of veterans. Still, abortion was excluded from the V.A.'s health services until just three years ago. Now the Trump administration is attempting to reverse course on that long-overdue expansion of women's care -- at a time when abortion is less available than it had been in decades nationally because of the fall of Roe v. Wade. If the administration is successful, many more women who have served our country will suffer as my client suffered. Some may die.
Before 2022, any discussion of abortion at a V.A. facility was a nonstarter; veterans could not receive information from their trusted doctors on where to receive a safe and legal abortion. Still, many female veterans could make do without V.A. abortion funding because, at the time, there were far more clinics around the country where they could get the procedure. That said, they had to be able to afford the hundreds of dollars an abortion can cost, plus any travel-related expenses, if needed.
In 2022, after the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, the V.A. began to provide abortions for women who had experienced rape or incest or who had a life-threatening condition. The rule change was a respite for female veterans in states that had outlawed abortion and shuttered clinics.
Then, of course, Donald Trump was elected again. On Aug. 4 the Trump administration proposed to rescind the 2022 expansion of services. The proposed regulation, which is currently in a public comment period, includes reassurances that the V.A. would never deny health care to women in "life-threatening circumstances." Such reassurances are little comfort for women in states that have banned abortion. Doctors can struggle to determine when a medical situation becomes life-threatening, sometimes delaying care and putting women's lives at risk. Pregnant women in states with abortion bans are almost twice as likely as pregnant women in other states to die during pregnancy, childbirth or soon after.
In the proposed regulation, there is no mention of what happens if a woman is raped or what to do for a victim of incest who becomes pregnant. It is not unreasonable to assume that the V.A. will deny those women care. If this rule goes into effect, it is only a matter of time before V.A. physicians have to weigh their patients' lives against their own livelihoods: In some states, doctors determined to have violated anti-abortion laws run the risk of losing their licenses or serving jail or prison time.
In the first year that it began offering abortions, the V.A. performed 88 such procedures, all to women who had been raped or whose pregnancies were a direct threat to their health or life. According to an AP/NORC poll, Americans overwhelmingly said they supported abortions in such situations.
The proposed new rule will directly affect many of the most vulnerable people the V.A. serves, including military sexual trauma survivors. If the V.A.'s rule is codified, the message the agency will be sending is clear: Women's health is not a priority for the armed forces or for this administration. The risks are real. I fear that the one thing our female vets will be able to turn to the V.A. for is burial benefits. Too many more will need them.
Chelsea Donaldson is a lawyer specializing in veterans' issues and a licensed master social worker.
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