Project 2025, Trump’s “Concept of a Plan” and Threat to Women’s Reproductive Rights
As the 2024 presidential election approaches, the stakes for the future of democracy and individual freedoms are incredibly high. One of the most significant threats comes from Project 2025, a federal policy blueprint developed by the Heritage Foundation and 140 former Trump administration officials. This 900-page manual, titled Mandate for Leadership, outlines a radical restructuring of the executive branch to impose a deeply conservative agenda. According to the Mandate for Leadership, they look to severely restrict women’s reproductive rights, including the abolition of abortion care, all contraception methods including IVF, tracking women’s pregnancies outcomes, and even emergency reproductive services.
What is Project 2025?
Project 2025 is a comprehensive plan designed to reshape the federal government to align with extreme conservative ideals. No matter if the polls say Project 2025 is highly objected by the public, Republican and Democrat, Trump won’t need Congress or the Supreme Court to execute most of these draconian policies. All he needs to do is get re-elected. And he could begin carrying out Project 2025 on Day One.
It touches on many aspects of American life but places a particular focus on Women’s reproductive freedoms and rights. Under Project 2025, the goal is to limit or eliminate access to abortion, reverse the FDA’s approval of mifepristone (a drug used for medication abortions), and revive the 19th-century Comstock Act to ban any abortion-related materials from being sent through the U.S. Postal Service. These proposals would not only devastate abortion access but also restrict emergency abortion care, contraception, and in vitro fertilization (IVF).
The Heritage Foundation, a key player behind Project 2025, goes as far as to advocate against all forms of recreational sex, suggesting that removing access to birth control would “[return] the consequentiality to sex.” Their anti-reproductive health agenda is crystal clear and would have profound consequences on the lives of millions of Americans, particularly women.
Impact on Contraceptive Access
Project 2025 doesn’t stop at abortion. It also seeks to dismantle the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which currently guarantees no-cost contraception for over 62.4 million women in the U.S. Without the ACA, millions of women would face the daunting reality of having to pay out-of-pocket for contraceptives. Prior to ACA coverage, contraception accounted for 30-44% of out-of-pocket healthcare costs for women, according to Planned Parenthood. The blueprint suggests that emergency contraception, such as the morning-after pill, should not be covered under the ACA, arguing that it is a “potential abortifacient.” If this plan is executed, 48 million women could lose access to emergency contraception.
The Trump administration has already laid the groundwork for this by cutting funding for the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program and imposing restrictions on Title X, which provides reproductive healthcare to lower-income individuals. Project 2025 would go even further, suggesting that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) should explicitly reject abortion as healthcare, rebranding itself as the “Department of Life” and focusing on protecting life “from conception to natural death.”
The Texas Implications: Abortion Bans and Beyond
For Texans, the implications of Project 2025 are particularly dire. Since the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022, the state has already imposed strict abortion bans under the leadership of Governor Greg Abbott and Senator Ted Cruz. After the Roe reversal, Texas implemented a near-total abortion ban, leaving thousands of women without access to safe reproductive healthcare. In fact, a recent study found that Texans have experienced 26,000 rape-related pregnancies since Roe was overturned.
Project 2025 would exacerbate these conditions by further restricting access to contraceptives and emergency abortion care, leaving even more women without essential healthcare options. The current policies in Texas, combined with Project 2025’s agenda, would create an environment where women have little to no control over their reproductive choices, effectively rolling back decades of progress in women’s rights.
Project 2025: A Broader Threat to Democracy
The reach of Project 2025 extends far beyond Women’s reproductive rights. It is part of a larger plan to reshape the federal government and impose far-right values across the country. The authors of this project include 140 former Trump administration officials, and despite Trump’s claims of having “no idea” who is behind the initiative, his involvement is undeniable. Should Trump be re-elected in 2024, he could begin implementing Project 2025 on his first day in office, without needing Congress or the Supreme Court to enact many of its provisions.
This project threatens to replace the rule of law with an extreme conservative agenda that opposes not only reproductive rights but also LGBTQ rights, racial equity, and immigrants’ rights. The Heritage Foundation, which has long opposed progressive policies, is spearheading this effort. If Project 2025 comes to fruition, it would reshape American governance in ways that restrict personal freedoms, dismantle critical protections, and undermine democracy itself.
Imminent Urgency of the 2024 Election
The outcome of the 2024 presidential election could determine whether Project 2025 becomes a reality. The policies outlined in Project 2025 represent a dangerous shift toward authoritarianism, where individual freedoms for everyone in this country are at risk.
In Texas and across the country, voters must recognize the potential impact of these policies and the future of democracy. Project 2025 isn’t just about policy changes—it’s about fundamentally altering the fabric of American democracy and human rights that we’ve worked so hard for to provide as a county because individual liberty, privacy, and freedom is the most scared belief in our democracy. America is known as the land of opportunities because every individual has the right, not the privilege, to be and do anything they imagine without government interference and consequences.
Trump’s “concept of a plan” is Project 2025. This plan imposes a serious threat to the future of modern democracy and allows the government to invade our personal autonomy.
The time to act is at the polls, before these draconian policies become a reality.
Laissez-faire Project 2025
