Exposing Project 2025

Abortion

They don't believe that women should have rights, especially the right to make decisions with their bodies. 

Project 2025 makes it clear that their ultimate agenda is to control all aspects of sex and sexuality, including fertility and reproduction. The overturning of Roe V. Wade on June 24th, 2022 was just the first step. Project 2025 lays out plans for a federal ban on ALL FORMS of abortion (including medical, i.e. medication such as mifepristone), then, in the future, restricting the availability of birth control, and a possible federal ban on In Vitro Fertilization (IVF).

The reasoning behind this is that sex is for reproduction only, not pleasure, and that anything that stands in the way of conception should be banned because, as Christian conservatives see it, "life begins at conception." That's why some argue that a fertilized egg should be considered a person, equal to a living child (see discussion below on Alabama ruling).

States Project 2025: "...the Dobbs decision is just the beginning. Conservatives in the states and in Washington, including in the next conservative Administration, should push as hard as possible to protect the unborn in every jurisdiction in America." (pg. 6)

THE CONSERVATIVE VISION OF SEX IN GENERAL

The right wing promulgates an old-fashioned view of sex: that it is not -- or should not be -- for pleasure, but only for producing babies. Sex for pleasure creates problems, conservatives argue: "'Recreational sex' is a large part of the reason we have so many single-mother households, which drives poverty, crime, and dysfunction. The point of sex is to create children – this is natural, normal, and good." (1)

Here are some specific proposals to eliminate reproductive rights or policies supporting women's agency to control their own bodies, or bodily autonomy.

ABORTION

The fertilized egg should have personhood rights: One of the primary missions of Project 2025 is to enforce a complete federal ban on all abortions. It states: The duty of HHS [Dept. of Health and Human Services] is to further "the health and well-being of all Americans 'from conception to natural death.'" (pg. 488) This means that any fertilized egg (whether in the womb or in a petri dish) should have the same rights as a person.

Personhood begins at conception: "From the moment of conception, every human being possesses inherent dignity and worth, and our humanity does not depend on our age, stage of development, race, or abilities," states Project 2025. (pg. 450)

If personhood begins at conception, then "Abortion is not health care, and states should be free to devise and implement programs that prioritize qualified providers that are not entangled with the abortion industry." (pg. 472) Nor should insurance companies be required to cover abortion under any circumstance. (pg. 472)

Project 2025 pushes the "Life Agenda": The dept. of Health and Human Services should be "known as the Department of Life." The Secretary should eliminate the department's "Reproductive Healthcare Access Task Force and install a pro-life task force to ensure that all of the department's divisions seek to use their authority to promote the life and health of women and their unborn children." (pg. 488)

Meanwhile, abortion is harmful to women, says Project 2025: "HHS should create and promote a research agenda that supports pro-life policies and explores the harms, both mental and physical, that abortion has wrought on women and girls." (pg. 461)

Project 2025 claims that medical abortions (i.e., using medication such as mifepristone) in particular harm women, and states that the FDA failed in its obligations to "protect the health, safety, and welfare of girls and women. It never studied the safety of the drugs under the labeled conditions of use, ignored the potential impacts of the hormone-blocking regimen on the developing bodies of adolescent girls, disregarded the substantial evidence that chemical abortion drugs cause more complications than surgical abortions, and eliminated necessary safeguards for pregnant girls and women who undergo this dangerous drug regimen." (pg. 458)