(FreedomBeacon.com)- A Republican senator from Montana wants the Department of Veterans Affairs to rescind its new rule that allows abortion services to be provided through the VA health-care system.
Earlier this week, Senator Steve Daines wrote a letter to Denis McDonough, the secretary of the VA, demanding that the new rule immediately be rescinded. The demand was for the Biden administration to reverse its newly-passed rule that allows clinics in the VA system to provide abortion services.
Daines’ letter comes following a determination by the Congressional Research Service that such a move would be considered illegal.
In early September, the VA announced that it would start to provide counseling for abortion as well as actual abortion services to people in the U.S. who qualify to have services provided by the VA.
The rule passed by the Biden administration would also allow health-care workers at the VA to perform abortions throughout the country, even in certain states that make the practice illegal.
In his letter, Daines wrote to McDonough:
“I insist that you immediately rescind the illegal IFR [Interim Final Rule] and revert the VA’s policies to the long-standing prior regulation excluding abortion from the VA’s medical benefits package as well as the CHAMPVA program, in conformity with the law and Congressional intent.”
Daines spoke with the Daily Caller, which obtained a copy of the letter, before he official sent his message to McDonough. During that interview, Daines said:
“Instead of focusing on improving care for our nation’s veterans, the Biden administration wants VA clinics to provide taxpayer-funded abortions on demand up to the moment of birth. This blatantly illegal move must be stopped.”
Abortion has risen to the forefront of issues throughout the country, ever since the Supreme Court overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade decision back in June. By doing so, it removed the federal constitutional protections women had in regard to getting an abortion.
The high court essentially gave individual states the choice for how they wanted to regulate abortion, rather than providing protections on a federal level.
Immediately after the decision was handed down, several Republican-led states either began working on legislation — or announced they would soon enact new legislation — to either severely restrict or outright ban abortion services in their state.
That led many liberal-led states to proclaim they would welcome residents from other states who couldn’t get an abortion in their home state due to these new laws.
Democrats at the federal level have been trying to pass legislation that would codify the federal right to an abortion, but that has gone nowhere in this Congress, since Democrats only have a slight majority in the House and Senate.
As such, the Biden administration has been trying everything it can to provide some of those abortion protections to women across the country. This move by the VA was just one example of how it sought to do that, even if the action it took was completely illegal.
