New Trump rule to ban VA abortions for veterans even in cases of rape and incest [View all]

Source: The Guardian

Fri 29 Aug 2025 10.51 EDT
First published on Fri 29 Aug 2025 10.30 EDT


Doctors at the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) would be barred from performing abortions, even in cases of rape and incest, under new rules proposed by the Trump administration.

The draft regulations, which also forbid providers from counseling female veterans about terminating a pregnancy, have generated nearly 20,000 comments in the federal register from conservative activists, abortion rights supporters and female veterans, many of them survivors of sexual assault.

“I am a veteran, a mother, and my abortion saved my life,” wrote Mary Dodson-Otten, a 41-year-old nurse and air force veteran who lives outside Atlanta, Georgia.

Dodson-Otten told the Guardian she ended a pregnancy in her 20s after she got pregnant by an abusive boyfriend who was a fellow service member. Without the abortion, she said, “I don’t think I would have survived, whether it would have been him hurting me or me hurting me.”

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/29/trump-veterans-affairs-abortion-ban