A leaked Department of Veteran Affairs video showed efforts to promote abortions and more "medically accurate" terminology such as "person who is pregnant" over pregnant women.
A "Reproductive Health Training" video from April 2023 advised staffers on how to counsel veterans considering abortion.
Before discussing counseling procedures, the video began with a "note" on language that clarified, "Not all people who seek abortions identify as women." Another note read, "’Person who is pregnant’ is inclusive and preferred to ‘pregnant woman.’"
"When ‘women’ is used in this presentation series, it’s because the studies cited only included ciswomen," the video also stated.
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Another slide offered a "guide" to "language and abortion" to offer to veterans potentially seeking abortions. The language included using "embryo or fetus" instead of "baby or unborn child," "embryonic or fetal cardiac activity" instead of "fetal heartbeat," "veteran or person" instead of "mother" and "pregnancy options counseling" instead of "abortion counseling."
Additional videos obtained by The Post Millennial showed what appeared to be defenses for abortion as "essential, life-saving care" and safer than pregnancy. The videos also suggested that "pregnancy can endanger mental health" while abortion patients "rarely" feel regret.
In a statement to FOX News Digital, CatholicVote President Brian Burch said, "The Biden Administration’s Department of Veterans Affairs has shamelessly weaponized the U.S. military to advance a radical pro-abortion agenda that has no place infecting our defense agencies. CatholicVote has spent the past several months demanding that the VA stop holding military appointments hostage with its illegal, unconstitutional policy to fund abortion and abortion-related expenses for service members and their families, while expressing concern over the agency’s increasingly overt political bias."
"Today our worst fears were confirmed by the VA’s outrageous training video that unapologetically encourages and glorifies abortion, implies pregnancy is a dangerous medical condition, and suggests that abortion is always safer than childbirth," Burch continued. "The video is an insult to women everywhere, not only because it utterly denies biology in claiming men can get pregnant, but also because it adds insult to injury in claiming pregnancy is nothing to be celebrated or congratulated. Such outrageous and offensive pro-abortion propaganda coming from a government agency tasked with protesting American lives is a deeply disturbing sign of the times imposed by this radical administration."
Susan B. Anthony President Marjorie Dannenfelser also commented on the video saying, "Americans will be shocked to learn that, not only is the VA performing abortions at hospitals across the county, but they are promoting and training their staff with radical pro-abortion ideology, counseling women veterans into having abortions. Most Americans don't want their taxpayer dollars funding abortions, especially in direct violation of the law."
"Senator [Tommy] Tuberville and Rep. Michael Cloud should be applauded for exposing that the VA has opened the door to abortion on demand," she continued. "And for leading Congressional efforts to stop this illegal agenda. Right now, the VA is instructing its staff to completely sidestep state pro-life laws and provide abortions. We must continue to expose and stop this illegal extremism. At a time when our veterans need our greatest support, why is the VA prioritizing forced ideology over the needs of our ill, injured and wounded veterans?"
In addition to his resolution with Cloud against the VA's abortion policy, Tuberville has blocked hundreds of military appointments in response to the Pentagon's policy to provide abortions to service members.
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The Department of Veterans Affairs did not immediately respond for comment.
This leak came more than a year after the department announced that it would begin providing abortion services for veterans and their dependents through the taxpayer-funded VA health care system. This would include states where abortions are restricted or outlawed.
"This is a patient safety decision," Denis McDonough, secretary of Veterans Affairs, said in a statement at the time. "Pregnant Veterans and VA beneficiaries deserve to have access to world-class reproductive care when they need it most. That’s what our nation owes them, and that’s what we at VA will deliver."
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