WASHINGTON — The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has thanked the Trump administration for its recent decision to revoke a Biden-era rule that qualified veterans to receive abortions under their medical package.
“The women and men who served our country, to defend innocent life, deserve quality health care and supportive resources, not the violence of abortion,” USCCB President Archbishop Timothy Broglio of the Military Services, USA, and USCCB Committee on Pro-Life Activities Chair Bishop Daniel Thomas of Toledo, Ohio, said in an Aug. 5 statement.
“Veteran’s health facilities must not be places of death, but places of great hope,” the prelates added. “We are grateful that the Department of Veterans Affairs is stepping up to protect preborn children and families once again from taxpayer-funded, elective abortion, and look forward to reviewing the new proposed rule in full.”
The Biden administration changed veterans’ medical packages to cover abortions in 2022. The Trump administration revoked the rule on Aug. 1, restoring the long-standing policy that prevented veterans’ medical packages from covering abortion.
RELATED: Biden Signs Executive Order on Abortion Access
Prior to 2022, the exclusion of abortion coverage had been in place since the medical benefits package was first established in 1999, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs.
“We take this action to ensure that VA provides only needed medical services to our nation’s heroes and their families,” the department said in an Aug. 4 statement. The Biden administration’s rule moved from interim to finalized on March 1, 2022.
At that time, Archbishop Broglio commented that “the notion that killing an unborn child can somehow be considered ‘medical or surgical care’ certainly violates the dignity of the human person and suggests that some lives are more important than others.” “I deplore this decision,” he added. Contrarily, on Aug. 4, Archbishop Broglio thanked the Trump administration for protecting life in an individual statement on the decision to revoke the rule.
“I am deeply grateful to VA Secretary Doug Collins and President Trump for returning to the prior policy that prohibits the use of federal funds to end the life of the preborn in the womb,” Archbishop Broglio said. “It is only fitting that an agency established to care for those who so often put their lives on the line to defend the innocent is freed from participation in procedures that do not support innocent life.”