The Justice Department said Thursday that it will provide legal defense if necessary to Veterans Affairs medical workers who perform abortions to save a patient’s life, protect the mother’s health or in instances when the pregnancy is a result of rape or incest — even if performed in a state where the procedure is illegal in those circumstances.
In an internal government opinion, Justice Department lawyers said that a recently adopted Department of Veterans Affairs policy permitting employees to provide abortion services to veterans and their eligible relatives is legally sound and can continue. The Veterans Affairs agency started offering abortions at its federal facilities earlier this month in the wake of a June Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, upending the right to terminate a pregnancy that had been enshrined in federal law for nearly 50 years.
1 in 3 American women have already lost abortion access. More restrictive laws are coming.
In some states,…
This article was written by Perry Stein and originally published on www.washingtonpost.com