(Oregon Right to Life News) — This week, in anticipation of Veterans’ Day, Oregon State Attorney General Dan Rayfield announced he was pushing for a reversal of a pro-life rule that currently limits the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) from performing abortions, except in the case of a medical emergency. Oregon Right to Life Executive Director Lois Anderson responded to the announcement, arguing that veterans in Oregon and nationwide should have access to life-affirming care, not taxpayer-funded abortions.
On Monday, Oregon State Attorney General Dan Rayfield, who filed an amicus brief in a lawsuit against the Trump administration change, said he was pushing a federal appellate court to return to the Biden administration’s policy.
The rule in question was implemented by the Trump administration in December 2025, but is itself a reinstatement of a VA policy that had already been in place from 1999 to 2022. The policy excluded abortion procedures and abortion counseling from the services the federal department may provide. The Biden administration upended that policy in 2022, allowing the VA to perform abortions “if determined needed by a health care professional, when the life or the health of the pregnant veteran would be endangered if the pregnancy were carried to term or the pregnancy is the result of an act of rape or incest.” The broad, vague categories contained loopholes permitting VA medical providers to perform elective abortions.
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Oregon Right to Life Executive Director Lois Anderson responded to AG Rayfield’s announcement on Tuesday.
“Veterans’ Day is a time to honor the self-sacrificing service of our military men and women. But AG Rayfield is turning it into another opportunity to promote taxpayer-funded abortion,” Anderson said in a Tuesday press release.
“What Rayfield is doing – beyond promoting the Oregon government’s radical pro-abortion agenda – is seeking to upend a common-sense policy that has been standard practice for the VA for decades,” Anderson continued. “We should be clear about what we’re talking about: Abortion ends the life of an innocent human being – it is certainly not health care.”
“Our veterans, here in Oregon and across the country, deserve life-affirming care that treats both mothers and their unborn babies as patients,” she added. “The VA should never be in the business of providing or referring for abortions.”
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The VA’s current rule protects the lives of the unborn with an exception in the case of a life-threatening medical emergency. Medical care for ectopic pregnancies and miscarriages is not prohibited.
Polls consistently show a majority of Americans oppose the use of federal dollars to fund abortion. A 2026 Marist poll found that 54% of Americans polled disagreed with the use of tax dollars to finance abortion, and 84% said they supported “pregnancy resource centers which are places that do not perform abortions but instead offer support to people during their pregnancy and after the baby is born.”
