The Veterans Administration announced this month it would offer abortions in their facilities 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.”
The agency’s undersecretary for health said the VA would offer the procedures even in states such as Alabama where most abortions are now illegal.
Thursday on WVNN’s “The Dale Jackson Show,” Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said it would be against the law for VA doctors to perform those abortions in the Yellowhammer State.
“Sometimes we lose sight of the fact that what Alabama did was create a criminal statute for someone that performs an abortion,” Marshall said. “The criminal laws apply equally to Redstone Arsenal as they do off of federal property.”
Marshall said he thinks this is just a publicity stunt by the president to promote a political agenda.
“I think this is more posturing by the Biden administration, sort of a huff and bluster,” he said. “But we’re going to do our jobs. We’re going to enforce the criminal laws in the state of Alabama whatever they may be, and this case we have decided is a Class A felony for someone to perform or be involved with the abortion itself.
“Again, we’re not talking about the mother but, instead, practitioners and we’ll enforce the criminal laws here just like we do any other place.”
The attorney general gave an example of how state laws still apply on federal property.
“Just think for example if somebody went out and committed murder on the arsenal,” he said. “That’s something that’s going to be prosecuted as a criminal act here in the state of Alabama. The fact that that land is owned by the federal government in and of itself is not something that allows them to abdicate responsibility to comply with state law.”
Marshall said this is just the latest example of the Democrats overreacting to the Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe V. Wade, which he emphasized does not change the fact that performing those abortions in Alabama is still illegal.
“This is just, again, the federal government attempting to be a bully, when they lost the Dobbs decision, trying to find a way to placate the left,” he said. “And we believe very strongly that the criminal laws in the state of Alabama apply and do apply in this situation.”
He said this effort by federal government is really not in the best interest of the employees of the VA.
“They are allowing their own employees to potentially become pawns in an effort to enforce policy that they don’t have the ability to do at the state level, and so to the extent that the want to expose VA employees to the potential criminal violations,” Marshall said. “Not only is that truly offensive, but also it is not standing up for the best interest of their own employees knowing that there is state law stating very specifically that it’s a criminal act to perform these procedures.”
Yaffee is a contributing writer to Yellowhammer News and hosts “The Yaffee Program” weekdays 9-11 a.m. on WVNN. You can follow him on Twitter @Yaffee
