The VA wants to end coverage of abortion for US military veterans

President Donald Trump's administration is calling to remove abortion coverage from the list of medical benefits for veterans and their families, saying it's not needed.

The Department of Veterans Affairs posted the proposed rule change on Monday and opened a public comment period on it that runs through Sept. 3. The department said in its proposal that it wants to ensure it “provides only needed medical services to our nation’s heroes and their families.”

The department says it would still provide abortion in life-threatening circumstances — something state laws allow, even in places where bans are in place. But critics of the change note that abortion would not be provided when pregnancies are the result of rape or incest.

Amy Friedrich-Karnik, director of federal policy at the Guttmacher Institute, said in a statement that the change would cut off millions of veterans and their families from services.

“Veterans have historically faced significant barriers to reproductive health care, and with the current patchwork of abortion bans and restrictions across the country, these barriers are even steeper today," she said.

Veterans Affairs, which provides health coverage for veterans and their dependents, did not include abortion in its coverage until 2022. President Joe Biden's administration added it months after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and state abortion bans began kicking in.

The Biden changed allowed the VA to provide abortion even in states where it was banned. The VA says in its proposal that allowing abortion is legally questionable because Congress has not specifically allowed it. The policy change would also bring the VA's coverage into line with other federal health care plans — including Medicaid and the TriCare coverage for active military members and their families — which exclude abortion in most cases.

The VA said in its filings that about 100 veterans and 40 dependents obtain abortions using the benefits each year — far below the projection the department made in 2022 of a total of 1,000 a year.

The conservative law firm Alliance Defending Freedom called on the VA to drop abortion coverage in a letter last month, saying the cost or providing abortion takes other health resources away from veterans.

FILE - An anti-abortion supporter sits behind a sign that advises the Jackson Women's Health Organization clinic is still open in Jackson, Miss., July 6, 2022. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File)

FILE - Abortion-rights activists demonstrate against the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade that established a constitutional right to abortion, on Capitol Hill in Washington, June 30, 2022. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

FILE - Anti-abortion protesters rally outside of the Supreme Court, June 26, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib, file)

FILE - Emma Rousseau of Oakland, N.J., her mouth bound with a red, white and blue netting, attends a rally on the Fourth of July to protest for abortion rights, at Lafayette Park in front of the White House in Washington, July 4, 2022. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — One of the three court challenges to an immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades has ended after the immigrant detainee who filed the lawsuit agreed to be removed from the United States and will be out of the country soon, his attorneys said.

The detainee at the facility dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” asked that his case in federal court in Fort Myers be dismissed Monday.

“Petitioner is no longer detained at Alligator Alcatraz, he has formally agreed to be removed, and he will soon have left the United States,” his attorneys wrote in a court motion. One of his attorneys, Spencer Amdur of the American Civil Liberties Union, said by phone Tuesday that the detainee, referred to only as M.A. in court documents, would be returning to Chile.

The lawsuit claimed that immigration was a federal issue, and Florida agencies and private contractors hired by the state had no authority to operate the facility under federal law. Detainees who entered the facility disappeared from the normal detainee tracking system and had difficulty accessing legal help, the lawsuit said.

Florida has led other states in constructing facilities to support President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. Besides the Everglades facility, which received its first detainees in July, Florida has opened an immigration detention center in the northeastern part of the state and is looking at opening a third facility in the Panhandle.

M.A. is married to a U.S. citizen and has five stepchildren who are U.S. citizens. He entered the United States in 2018 on a visa and later applied for asylum. Before his arrest last July, he had a work permit, a Social Security card and a driver’s license, according to court documents.

After his arrest, but before he was sent to the Everglades facility, officers pressured him to sign an English-only form that he didn't understand but was later told it was a voluntary removal form, according to court documents.

During his time at the Everglades detention facility, he was twice hospitalized and put in a wheelchair because of a condition in which he was unable to feel his legs. “M.A. entered the facility able to walk, but he is now in a wheelchair,” his lawsuit said.

M.A.’s case was one of three federal lawsuits challenging practices at the immigration detention center that was built last summer at a remote airstrip in the Florida Everglades by the administration of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.

In a separate case, a federal judge in Miami last summer ordered the facility to wind down operations over two months because officials had failed to do a review of the detention center’s environmental impact. But an appellate court panel put that decision on hold for the time being, allowing the facility to stay open.

In the third lawsuit, detainees were seeking a ruling that would ensure that they have access to confidential communications with their attorneys. During an online meeting Tuesday, attorneys for the detainees and lawyers for the state and federal government defendants outlined plans for a hearing at the end of the month over a request for a preliminary injunction. ACLU attorneys said they would likely call former detainees at the facility now living outside the United States who would testify remotely as witnesses.

Follow Mike Schneider on the social platform Bluesky: @mikeysid.bsky.social

FILE - A loader holds a sign reading "Alligator Alcatraz" in its bucket as workers install it at the entrance to a new migrant detention facility at Dade-Collier Training and Transition facility, July 3, 2025, in Ochopee, Fla. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)