Raoul Joins 22 Attorneys General in Challenge to VA Abortion Care Rule
The coalition argues the federal rule would cut off abortion care for 90% of previously eligible patients and create confusion for providers.
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CHICAGO — Attorney General Kwame Raoul, as part of a coalition of 23 attorneys general, filed an amicus brief in support of plaintiffs challenging the Trump administration’s new federal rule that would eliminate veterans’ and their families’ access to abortion care. In the brief, filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the coalition argues that a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) rule would deny abortion care to 90% of previously eligible patients, jeopardizes the health and well-being of veterans and their families, creates dangerous confusion for healthcare providers, and shifts burdensome healthcare costs onto states.
“Those who have served in the military have made countless sacrifices to protect our freedoms and deserve the protection of their rights to reproductive freedom,” Raoul said. “I will not stop defending their rights, and the rights of all women, to access abortion care.”
In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade, 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 current rule also permits veterans, their survivors and dependents to access abortion counseling at VA health centers.
The Trump administration’s reversal of this rule disproportionately harms women veterans, who face elevated risks of pregnancy complications, military sexual trauma and financial barriers to care. In the first year of the 2022 rule, 73% of patients who received abortion care through the VA experienced pregnancies that threatened their health, 17% were survivors of rape, and 10% faced life-threatening pregnancies, demonstrating its necessity. Despite concerns raised by the coalition directly with the VA and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), as well as a September 2025 comment letter detailing the rule’s harmful consequences, the VA finalized the rule without changes.
In today’s amicus brief, Raoul and the attorneys general argue that the proposed rule creates dangerous confusion as to when, if at all, VA physicians can provide abortion care. Although the new rule expressly permits life-saving abortions for certain dependents and survivors covered under Civilian Health and Medical Program of the Department of Veterans Affairs, it fails to establish the same explicit exception for veterans themselves. The uncertainty created by the lack of explicit language allowing life-saving abortions may cause providers to delay emergency treatment out of fear of legal or professional consequences, including loss of licensure or even jail time, as sadly evidenced by the at least seven documented deaths due to interference with providers’ ability to provide emergency care. The rule also deprives veterans and their families of information necessary to make informed healthcare decisions and undermines trust between patients and providers by restricting providers’ ability to discuss abortion as a medical option.
Raoul and the attorneys general also argue that the rule diverges from state and federal healthcare standards. The new rule is more restrictive than most state abortion bans and departs from federal emergency healthcare standards, including the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, which requires covered hospitals to stabilize qualifying emergency medical conditions that could reasonably be expected to seriously jeopardize a pregnant patient’s health.
The brief notes that by denying veterans access to medically necessary abortion care through the VA, the rule shifts healthcare costs onto states’ already strained Medicaid programs and reproductive healthcare safety nets.
In filing today’s amicus brief, Attorney General Raoul was joined by the attorneys general of Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and Washington.
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