Mary Kuntz discusses the Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA) recently adopted abortion access policy with reporter, Mark McGraw from PSHRA. While the VA policy seeks to allow exceptions for religious objections by medical staff at VA facilities – in compliance with the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) and in alignment with the First Amendment — “it appears that the VA has failed to provide a policy for employees to follow in seeking religious waivers or a process for determining the outcome of these,” according to Mary.
The first claim to challenge the VA’s policy takes aim at the VA’s abortion policy itself. “The interesting question, then, is not whether other challenges to the VA’s new rule on abortion services will come — surely the answer to that is yes — but whether the courts will allow a case alleging violations of the RFRA and the First Amendment to be used to mount a collateral attack on an agency’s policy.”
Read the PSHRA article here.