This post was written by Pro-Choice North Carolina summer 2024 intern Anna Brent-Levenstein

Since the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court Dobbs decision, nearly two dozen states have banned or severely restricted abortion access, including almost every state in the southeast. These bans have already threatened the lives and wellbeing of millions of people and anti- abortion conservatives are far from done. The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 directly attacks the right to abortion and ushers in a dangerous surveillance state. Project 2025 is designed as a roadmap for the next conservative president, laying out a milieu of radical policies designed to overhaul Medicaid, climate change policies, the public education system, and access to abortion care 

While former President Trump has tried to distance himself from this agenda because of its unpopularity with voters, it is clear where he really stands. For starters, two-thirds of the authors and editors of Project 2025 served directly in the last Trump Administration. Trump, despite now claiming he knows nothing about the group responsible for Project 2025, has repeatedly praised the Heritage Foundation including stating in a speech in April 2022 that “they’re going to lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do.” Finally, his choice of a running mate in J.D. Vance, a man who in his Senate campaign in 2022 said he supported a total nationwide abortion ban, shows that he is more than open to a radical agenda attacking reproductive autonomy. 

While defenders of the project have asserted that it does not call for a complete ban on abortions, its policies would create a country where almost no abortions could take place freely or safely. First, Project 2025 calls for a revocation of FDA approval for mifepristone, the pill used in over half of abortions across the country, despite the fact that this medication has been repeatedly shown to be safe and effective. Medication abortion is an essential option for people who live far from clinics, face long wait times for in person appointments, are concerned about protest and harassment at clinics, or lack the money to access another form of abortion care.

In addition, Project 2025 calls for the use of the Comstock Act, an 1873 law banning the mailing of obscene materials, to criminalize anyone who tries to send abortion pills by mail which would make them nearly impossible to access. Critically, the Comstock Act bans the mailing of anything related to abortion care which means it could be used to stop needed supplies, instruments, and medications from reaching providers anywhere in the country, effectively banning abortion nationwide.

Project 2025 also seeks to dismantle agencies and task forces currently focused on access to healthcare, gender equality, and reproductive freedom and replace them with ones solely focused on restricting access to abortion. For example, the Department of Health and Human Services currently works on issues ranging from access to affordable health care for children and families to managing diseases and health emergencies. Under Project 2025, this critical agency would be dismantled and replaced with a “Department of Life”, which will be used to conduct surveillance on people who seek reproductive care and advise doctors and hospitals not to provide abortion care, even in emergency situations. This department would also direct the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to publish anti-abortion studies commonly based on junk science. 

To make matters worse, Project 2025 advocates for targeted surveillance against anyone who may seek abortion or reproductive care of any kind. It recommends that the CDC rapidly expand its abortion surveillance network and that any state who does not participate in this surveillance effort should have their federal funding slashed. Additionally, it calls for a crackdown on so-called “abortion tourism” by surveilling anyone who could potentially be seeking an abortion as they cross state lines and prosecuting anyone found to be receiving or assisting with the provision of abortion care. This system of surveillance is a significant breach of personal freedom and would lay the basis for the incarceration of providers and recipients of reproductive care. People’s personal and health information should be protected by, not exploited by, our government. 

Beyond abortion care, Project 2025 seeks to significantly curtail access to contraception and basic healthcare services. Project 2025 calls for Planned Parenthood’s federal funding to be cut to all services including contraception, STI testing and treatment, pre and postnatal care, and cancer screenings. In addition, Project 2025 seeks to remove emergency contraception from the contraception mandate in the Affordable Care Act, allowing insurers not to cover this treatment. Collectively, these measures hamper access to all forms of reproductive health care, especially for low-income women. 

While claiming to care about the wellbeing of families, Project 2025 slashes social and educational programs that provide for children’s health and wellbeing. Project 2025 advocates for a lifetime cap for Medicaid and housing benefits, denying people critical access to health care and shelter. It slashes funding for food stamps (SNAP), Women’s and Infant Care, and the Summer Food Service Programs, leaving families food-insecure and children hungry. Finally, it would eliminate the Head Start program, which has provided preschool to 40 million children, and drastically reduce free school lunches. Reproductive freedom and justice is also about ensuring that people who choose to have children can raise them in safe and healthy environments. These proposals would make it almost impossible for low-income families, especially single-parent households, to provide for themselves and their children. Put simply, there is nothing ‘pro-life’ about Project 2025. 

Project 2025 imposes a far-right and wildly unpopular agenda onto everyday Americans, the large majority of whom support making access to contraception, IVF, and reproductive care more accessible. These policies are dangerous and seek to move America backwards into an era where women did not have full autonomy over their own bodies or choices. 

The Dobbs decision was the beginning, not the end, of the GOP push to strip women of their right to make their own healthcare decisions. Project 2025 threatens not only abortion access, but access to affordable healthcare, contraception, reproductive care, and critical social programs. That is why it could not be more critical that come November, we vote for pro-choice candidates up and down the ballot in all races who will fight for our basic freedoms.