The Department of Justice (DOJ) released a memo on Dec. 18, 2025, that prohibited the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) from providing any abortion services to veterans and their dependents, even those previously excluded from the VA abortion ban when their health is threatened by carrying a pregnancy to term or if the pregnancy is due to rape or incest. Subsequently, the VA allegedly issued its own internal memo, advising VA officials that it must comply with the DOJ policy. This is consistent with the VA’s Aug. 2025 proposed rule (which has not yet been finalized) to reinstate its full exclusion on abortions and abortion counseling from the VA’s medical benefits package. Until 2022, this exclusion was consistently in place since the VA first offered this medical benefits package in 1999.
