New fight opens in Congress over VA policy that sidesteps state abortion bans
WASHINGTON — Democrats in the U.S. Senate are confident the Department of Veterans Affairs can implement a new policy that allows its doctors to provide abortions when the pregnancy threatens the patient’s life or health, or when it’s the result of rape or incest.
The VA announced the new policy last week to cheers from Democrats who have been searching for ways to broaden abortion access in states where the procedure has been outlawed since the U.S. Supreme Court ended the constitutional right to abortion in June. Abortion counseling and services would be provided to pregnant veterans and their beneficiaries in limited circumstances.
But Republicans have sharply criticized the VA for changing its longstanding no-abortions policy, with some pledging to keep the status quo.
Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth said this week that because VA hospitals are linked to teaching hospitals, those health care providers will have physicians on staff with the medical knowledge to perform the procedure.
In addition, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren said the Department of Justice would protect doctors from prosecution in states where abortion is now banned or heavily restricted.
“One of the strengths of VA health care is that every major VA hospital is affiliated with a teaching university, a medical university teaching facility,” Duckworth said. “So the skill, the ability to perform the procedures will be there.”
VA doctors also aren’t necessarily licensed in the state where they practice, she said, which means they likely would not face legal ramifications in states that have banned or restricted abortion.
VA doctors’ medical licenses could not be revoked for following VA abortion policy when it differs from state law “because many of them don’t have a license in that state because they are operating at the federal level,” Duckworth said.
Warren said she has “no doubt” that if a state’s attorney general or other prosecutor tries to put a VA health care provider in prison for acting in line with the VA’s new abortion policy, the U.S. Department of Justice would go to bat.
“The Department of Justice is there to defend the VA when the VA is acting in accordance with federal law,” Warren said.
Republicans vow to stop VA policy
Republicans pledged opposition. “This proposal is contrary to longstanding, settled law and a complete administrative overreach,” Illinois Republican Rep. Mike Bost, ranking member on the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, said in a statement last week. “I oppose it and am already working to put a stop to it.”
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall told AL.com that he plans to prosecute any health care provider who violates the state’s abortion law.
“I have no intention of abdicating my duty to enforce the Unborn Life Protection Act against any practitioner who unlawfully conducts abortions in the State of Alabama,” Marshall told AL.com in a statement. “The power of states to protect unborn life is settled.”
Alabama’s abortion law bans the procedure unless the woman’s life or health is at risk, meaning Marshall would likely be trying to…
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