On August 4, 2025, the Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) published a proposed rule that risks the safety and lives of veterans and their families. The proposed rule would eliminate critical exceptions for rape, incest, and to protect the health of the pregnant person, effectively prohibiting veterans and their family members from obtaining abortion care through VA health care plans. If adopted, the administration’s policy would remove certain exceptions for abortion and all abortion counseling from the medical benefits package (which serves veterans) and the Civilian Health and Medical Program of the Department of Veterans Affairs (CHAMPVA), which serves spouses, dependents, and survivors of veterans who are permanently and totally disabled or who died as a result of a disability from their service. The current—and soon-to-be old—rule permits veterans and their families who receive care through the VA to obtain an abortion only in cases of sexual assault, incest, or to preserve the health or life of the pregnant person. This policy change will have serious ramifications for veterans and their families—a fact that was not even mentioned in the proposed rule.
While government transparency and scientific integrity are ostensibly cornerstones of the Make America Health Again (MAHA) initiative, science did not inform the administration’s change in policy. Rather than making decisions rooted in reliable maternal or public health data, the proposed rule suggests that abortion in cases of rape, incest, or to protect the health of the pregnant person is not medically necessary because a portion of the nation’s taxpayers disagree with using federal funds to pay for abortion. The proposed rule largely relies on the administration’s assertion that, because the federal government has not historically provided coverage for abortion, abortion in these limited circumstances is not a “needed” medical service and should therefore not be included in the medical benefits package and CHAMPVA. Even if this legal argument made sense, the proposed rule lacks sufficient evidentiary support, for it is entirely devoid of scientific, medical, or public health data; the proposed rule cited no public or reproductive health data as support for its restrictions, nor did it attempt to debate the decades of research establishing the vital role that abortion care and counseling plays in the lives of veterans and their families.
The Ignored Evidence
The Numbers: Over 2.1 million veteran women live in the United States, and about 930,000 veteran women are enrolled in VA health care. Over 700,000 dependents of veterans are enrolled in CHAMPVA, with numbers continuing to climb. Hundreds of thousands of beneficiaries live in states that restrict abortion with the VA being their only opportunity to seek limited abortion care or counseling. For example, almost 170,000 veterans and their dependent who are enrolled in VA health care live in Texas, which banned abortion even in cases of rape or incest. Therefore, in the states without such exceptions, veterans and their families will be forced out-of-state to a non-VA facility. If a veteran or their dependent obtains an abortion at a non-VA facility, the care will not be covered, potentially costing $500 to $2,000 out of pocket, in addition to the costs of travel, childcare, time off from work, etc. The 300,000 veteran women of reproductive age enrolled in VA health care who live in a state that permits abortion will face a similar barrier to care under the proposed rule; they too will not have insurance covering the cost of an abortion in cases of rape, incest, or to preserve the life of the pregnant person. This expense is out of reach for many veterans and their families, making it critical that the VA offers these limited exceptions for abortion.
Sexual Violence: The proposed rule would have a devastating impact on VA health care beneficiaries given the high rate of sexual assault in the military. According to the federal government, military sexual trauma (MST) is “unfortunately common.” One in three veteran women report experiencing MST during their service, making it extremely important that veterans have access to abortion for pregnancies resulting from sexual assault.
Disabilities: Veterans are twice as likely than nonveterans to have a disability. Having a disability during pregnancy significantly increases the risk of complications, which in turn increases the likelihood of maternal mortality and morbidity. Abortion access to preserve the health of the pregnant person is therefore vital for veterans living with a disability.
Mental Health: Experiencing sexual violence is inextricably linked to mental health disorders, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), suicidal disorders, eating disorders, and substance use disorders—all of which risk being exacerbated when a person is denied a wanted abortion.
Poverty & Homelessness: There is considerable overlap between experiencing MST, poverty, and having a disability. Forty percent of veteran women experiencing homelessness report experiencing MST during their service. And while veterans are less likely to experience poverty than nonveterans, veteran women, especially between 18 and 34 years old, are more likely to live below the poverty line. Lower income reproductive age veteran women are therefore going to be disproportionally harmed by the VA’s policy.
The Administration’s change in policy failed to address any of this research.
Research shows that these variables—a lack of coverage; experiencing sexual violence; living with a disability or mental health disorder; and poverty and homelessness—combined with limited abortion care and counseling, will increase rates of mortality and morbidity among VA health care beneficiaries. This raises the important question: If the federal government is not considering this reliable public health data when making serious policy decisions that may impact millions of people...then what is being considered?
This administration's MAHA initiative and its changes to federal grantmaking call for radical transparency and gold-standard science. But the VA’s proposed rule is anything but transparent or in accordance with science. The absence of meaningful evidence-based reasoning in the proposed rule undermines the public’s trust in federal decision making, an issue that the MAHA movement and the President’s executive orders aim to address. The proposed VA abortion ban fails the follow the Administration's own standards that decisions be “informed by the most credible, reliable, and impartial scientific evidence available.” The proposed rule does not explain to VA health care beneficiaries, practitioners, researchers, or the public as to why the administration removed critical exceptions for rape, incest, or the health of pregnant veterans or the pregnant dependents of veterans.
If this administration is to Make America Health Again, promote transparency, and reinforce gold-standard science, then research and evidence must be at the forefront of consequential policy decisions impacting our nation’s veterans and their families. Moreover, once this rule becomes final, researchers must remain committed to studying reproductive and maternal health outcomes. Abortion bans do not stop abortions, and, just as after Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the field must continue to conduct research and uplift findings to better inform both the public and policymakers of the ramifications of restricting access to comprehensive abortion care.