So, you’ve heard Project 2025 is bad for abortion and now you’re scared. News reports are essentially saying, to quote the iconic Leah from Love Island USA Season 6, “whatever you’ve heard about me Project 2025, times it by a million and if you think it’s bad, make it worse.” Well, the first step to conquering a fear is to understand it. So, let’s get into it.
The Project 2025 federal policy agenda, authored by the [extremely creepy] Heritage Foundation and 109 other right-wing organizations, proposes radical anti-abortion policies that would: criminalize medication abortion; increase denials of abortion care; and expand surveillance and criminalization of pregnant people, among other proposals. If adopted, these policies would devastate what remains of access to abortion.
Project 2025 would ban and criminalize medication abortion nationwide.
Project 2025 advocates for a national ban on medication abortion by urging the FDA to reverse its approval of mifepristone and misoprostol, two pills used in the medication abortion regime that is the most common form of abortion in the U.S. Despite the extensive safety record of medication abortion, Project 2025 authors use bogus junk-science rhetoric to falsely characterize this vital and safe procedure as “dangerous to women.” Medication abortion helps fill the gaps in abortion access that have arisen since Dobbs and the closure of so many clinics, so a ban on this critical medication would only further devastate access nationwide.
Project 2025 also urges the DOJ to criminalize mailing of medication abortion pills via enforcement of the Comstock Act, a centuries old relic written in 1873, nearly 50 years before (mainly wealthy white) women even had the right to vote. Project 2025 proposes using this musty, dusty, moth-ball smelling law to criminalize anyone who sends or receives abortion pills anywhere in the country, even though Comstock has been considered unenforceable by the courts and Congress for nearly a century.
If Comstock were enforced in this way, it could ultimately be manipulated to ban mailing of anything used for abortion. This could amount to a nationwide ban on all abortions, considering that nearly everything that’s used in an abortion, from speculums to anesthetics to pain medications, is sent through the mail.
Just a thought: maybe we shouldn’t restore ancient laws written before the last Salem Witch Trial took place? *stares in 1870’s witch*
Project 2025 would increase denials of abortion care.
As we already explained, Project 2025 would encourage denials of emergency abortion care and investigation of doctors who provide that care. But there are other ways that Project 2025 would result in more denials of care.
Not enough people are talking about how Project 2025 also seeks to expand so-called “conscience laws,” which allow providers to deny patients the care they need based on their personal beliefs, not what is best for the patient. Project 2025 would weaponize “conscience laws” to deny federal funding to states seeking to expand abortion access. Project 2025 would also drastically expand the reach of these laws by applying them to other health care, like gender-affirming care, and by allowing almost anyone to invoke them. Under Project 2025’s plans, an OB/GYN receptionist who “dOeSn’T aGrEe wItH AbOrtIon” could refuse to schedule an appointment for someone seeking abortion care.
Here’s an idea: what if we all just…did our jobs and respected patient privacy?
Project 2025 would expand federal surveillance of pregnant people.
Project 2025 proposes a federal mandate for state reporting on abortion data, including the state of residence of the person receiving abortion care and the reason they sought care. It’s giving “1984 Big Brother is Watching You.” As states continue to expand efforts to surveil and criminalize people for their pregnancy outcomes, this personal medical data could be extremely dangerous in the hands of an anti-abortion administration. This is especially true for Black women, people of color, and immigrant communities who are already at greater risk of criminalization for their reproductive health choices.
I understand Project 2025’s dangerous plans for abortion, now what?
I’m not going to lie, the policy recommendations in Project 2025 are scary. But we can channel this fear into power by staying informed about attacks on abortion, understanding the risks, supporting people in need of abortion access right now, and fighting for a future where anyone who needs an abortion has access to that care. For more information see NWLC’s report, Project 2025: What it means for Women, Families, and Gender Justice.
