President Donald Trump appears poised to institute an abortion ban for hospitals run by the Department of Veterans Affairs — escalating his war on reproductive health care by revoking veterans’ access to abortion.

The Office of Management and Budget concluded its review last week of a Veterans Affairs rule titled Reproductive Health Services, clearing the way to implement it at the VA.

Experts believe the rule is a reversal of a Biden-era policy of the same name which ended the agency’s ban on abortion counseling for veterans and allowed for VA providers to offer abortion services in limited circumstances, such as rape, incest, or endangerment of a pregnant person’s life or health. If the policy is overturned, hundreds of thousands of veterans in states with abortion bans could lose access to abortion care and counseling.

Sara Outterson, chief federal legislative counsel for Policy and Advocacy at the Center for Reproductive Rights, said the change appears to be “the first nationwide abortion ban that Trump is supporting and putting in place.”

The new rule has not yet been published, and until it is, experts can’t be certain what exactly is in it. The VA did not respond to The Intercept’s request for comment. But Rachel Fey, vice president of policy and strategic partnerships at the reproductive and sexual health advocacy organization Power to Decide, said that based on the Trump administration’s posture and explicit calls in Project 2025 to reverse the Biden policy, she expects one of two outcomes.

“We think either they would roll back the exceptions to an extremely narrow set that mimics the Hyde Amendment,” Fey said, referring to a law that bars federal funds from being used for abortion........

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