(Washington) Access to abortion for American veterans and families of ex-soldiers will be facilitated, with limits, in health centers dedicated to them, the Department of Veterans Affairs announced on Friday.
Posted at 4:02 p.m.
The American federal authorities are thus responding to President Joe Biden’s desire to defend, as much as possible, a right recently taken away from women in at least 13 American states.
These federal services will thus provide “access to abortion if the life or health of the veteran was threatened in the event of a pregnancy carried to term, or if the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest”, the department said in a statement.
The latter “is taking steps to ensure abortion care for female veterans and other recipients of its services across the country,” the statement said, as several U.S. states have already outlawed abortion altogether. abortion, even in cases of rape or incest.
The department has nearly 1,300 health centers in the United States that serve 9 million veterans and their families.
Physicians at these centers will be able to perform abortions even if the state where they work prohibits it, because “employees of the department may provide authorized services as part of their federal employment, regardless of state restrictions” , underlines the press release.
The US Supreme Court, now very conservative, on June 24 abolished the constitutional right to abortion, which has been protected for nearly 50 years in the country, and returned to each state the power to legislate on the issue.
Since the cancellation of the famous Roe v. Wade, at least 13 states have banned or severely restricted access to abortion, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which campaigns for access to contraception and the voluntary termination of pregnancy.
President Joe Biden, a staunch proponent of abortion rights, has since tried to limit the scope of these restrictions, but his initiatives have so far had limited reach in a country where presidential power, however great he appears, is limited in relation to the jurisdictions of the States, of Congress and of the Supreme Court.