LANSING — Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has joined a coalition of 22 attorneys general in submitting a comment letter (PDF) opposing the Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA) proposed federal rule that would eliminate veterans’ and their families’ access to abortion care. In 2022, the Biden Administration implemented the “Reproductive Health Services” Rule, which currently allows veterans and their survivors and dependents to access abortion services at VA healthcare centers in situations where the patient’s life or health is threatened and in cases of self-reported rape or incest. The Rule also permits veterans and their survivors and dependents to access abortion counseling at VA health centers. On August 4, 2025, the Trump Administration published a proposed rule to formally undo the Biden Administration’s Rule. The comment letter is submitted in response to the VA’s invitation for public comment.
“After sacrificing so much for our country, our veterans and their families deserve access to lifesaving care, and that includes abortion services,” Nessel said. “By rolling back this care, the Trump Administration is turning its back on the very people who have put everything on the line to defend our freedoms. I stand with my colleagues in objecting to this unnecessary attack on veterans’ healthcare.”
On September 2, 2022, in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade, the Biden Administration’s VA announced the interim version of the Rule. On October 11, 2022, Attorney General Nessel filed a comment letter supporting the VA’s efforts to increase reproductive freedom. After receiving public comment, the VA finalized the Rule on March 4, 2024. Since the Dobbs decision, at least 19 states have banned or restricted abortion care, while others are still proposing new restrictions.
In the letter, the attorneys general write that:
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The proposed rule presents an unclear standard as to when, if at all, VA physicians can provide abortion care. Specifically, the proposed rule’s preamble insists that it will allow VA physicians to provide lifesaving care — in circumstances, “when a physician certifies that the life of the mother would be endangered if the fetus were carried to term” — while the proposed regulatory text bans abortion care for veterans entirely. Generally, where there is a discrepancy between the preamble and the regulatory text, the regulatory text controls. In addition, to the extent that the VA carves out an exception for the lives of pregnant survivors and dependents, it fails to set out a process by which individuals may take advantage of the exception.
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The proposed rule is extreme in its formulation and is out of step with existing abortion exceptions on the state and federal level. Although exceptions themselves are problematic and often difficult to administer, the VA’s proposed changes would mark a substantial and inhumane departure from decades of policy protecting the health and lives of pregnant patients and the autonomy of pregnant patients who have experienced rape and incest.
- The proposed rule is inadequately justified. It falsely claims that the VA does not have legal authority to provide abortion care, obfuscates other federal abortion policy in order to establish congressional intent for a VA abortion ban where there is none, and relies on political considerations instead of medical ones.
Joining Attorney General Nessel in sending the comment letter are the attorneys general of Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawai’i, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington.
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