US to offer military veterans limited abortion access

The United States will ensure that its military veterans have limited access to abortion, the department of veterans affairs announced Friday in the Biden administration's latest effort to defend the right to the procedure.

It comes after the conservative US Supreme Court in June struck down the decades-old constitutional right to abortion across the country, returning the decision on whether to allow it to individual states.

The department "will provide access to abortions when the life or health of the pregnant Veteran would be endangered if the pregnancy were carried to term, or when the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest," it said in a statement.

The department "is taking steps to guarantee Veterans and other VA beneficiaries abortion-related care anywhere in the country," the statement said.

The department of veterans affairs has nearly 1,300 health centers in the United States that serve nine million veterans and their families.

Doctors at these centers will be able to perform abortions even if the state where they work prohibits it because they are federal employees, the department said in its statement.

Thirteen states and counting have banned or severely restricted access to abortion since the Supreme Court decision, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which advocates for abortion rights.

President Joe Biden has tried to limit the scope of restrictions where possible, but his initiatives have been limited in a country where presidential power is checked by the powers of the states, Congress and the Supreme Court.