The Department of Veterans Affairs said Friday it will provide abortions for veterans and their beneficiaries as medically necessary or in cases of rape or incest.
The VA said it plans to provide abortions across the entire nation — including states, such as Texas, that prohibit the procedure. The VA’s decision reopens access to abortion to a class of women in Texas and several other states.
Texas is home to more than 1.5 million veterans. About 193,000 of those are women — more than any other state.
Texas lawmakers approved a ban on abortion that went into effect after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the case that established a nationwide right to abortion.
“This is a patient safety decision,” VA Secretary Denis McDonough said in a statement. “Pregnant Veterans and VA beneficiaries deserve to have access to world-class reproductive care when they need it most. That’s what our nation owes them, and that’s what we at VA will deliver.”
In announcing the decision to provide abortions, the VA said “access to medically necessary abortions is essential for preserving the life and health of Veterans and VA beneficiaries.”
That’s great, and I’m very glad to see it, but I think we all know that Greg Abbott and Ken Paxton aren’t going to just accept this as a given and keep quiet about it. There’s no comment from any Texas official in this story, so for right now we don’t know exactly how they will respond. But come on, we really do know that they will challenge it in court, and they will surely make threats about arresting VA doctors who perform abortions anyway. This was the right thing to do but the matter is far from settled. We will have to see how it plays out. Mother Jones has more.