What is Project 2025 and its abortion proposals?
Executive summary
Project 2025 is a conservative federal policy blueprint produced with heavy input from the Heritage Foundation and allied conservative figures that maps an ambitious, whole-of-government strategy to remove abortion from the landscape of federally supported health care and to constrict access nationwide . Its abortion-related proposals range from pressuring the FDA to withdraw mifepristone to enforcing century-old statutes against mailing abortion pills, increasing federal reporting and surveillance of abortions, embedding fetal “personhood” language into policy, and rolling back federal programs that fund contraception and family planning [1] [2].
1. What Project 2025 is and who wrote it
Project 2025 is a roughly 900-page policy playbook written by former Trump officials and the Heritage Foundation, with participation from hundreds of conservative operatives and at least dozens of people linked to the prior Trump administration; its framers present it as a blueprint for a second-term executive agenda and a reordering of the executive branch . The ACLU and other civil‑rights groups characterize it as a sweeping conservative restructuring that touches abortion among many other civil‑rights and administrative priorities .
2. Core abortion proposals in plain language
The document repeatedly targets medication abortion—urging the FDA to reverse approval of mifepristone and misoprostol and calling for enforcement of the 1873 Comstock Act to criminalize mailing abortion pills and related devices—while also proposing restrictions that would limit hospitals’ ability to provide emergency abortion care under EMTALA [2]. Project 2025 also advocates mandated state reporting on detailed abortion variables tied to Medicaid funding, increased surveillance of abortions (though not explicitly a registry of all pregnancies), and personhood-style language that could restrict contraceptives and assisted reproductive technologies [1].
3. Administrative levers and agency redesign
Rather than relying solely on new federal statutes, the playbook emphasizes executive‑branch tools: rewording agency mandates, creating a pro‑life task force to replace existing reproductive health groups in HHS, installing special representatives to push anti‑abortion policy across agencies, and auditing compliance with funding restrictions such as Hyde and Weldon [1]. Advocates of the plan argue these administrative moves can profoundly reshape access because many health programs and enforcement priorities are set within agencies .
4. Legal and enforcement strategies proposed
Project 2025 proposes resurrecting underused or dormant statutes and regulatory options—most prominently the Comstock Act and administrative pressure on the FDA—to criminalize or substantially limit medication abortion and its distribution; it also calls for rulemaking that could disqualify abortion providers from federal programs such as Medicaid, and for federal audits to penalize states that fund abortion through permissible channels [1]. Opponents note courts have previously found Comstock inapplicable to modern abortion care and that some legal maneuvers would face litigation, but the plan’s authors explicitly prioritize using DOJ, agency rulemaking, and regulatory reinterpretation over awaiting new congressional laws [2].
5. Predicted effects and criticism from rights groups
Reproductive‑rights organizations, civil‑rights advocates, and reproductive health providers warn the proposals would sharply reduce access to abortion and contraception, disproportionately harming low‑income people and communities of color, and could criminalize providers and patients in practice . Groups like Guttmacher, the Center for Reproductive Rights, and the National Women’s Law Center characterize the agenda as a coordinated attempt to “dismantle” sexual and reproductive rights by weaponizing federal power [1] [2].
6. What is contested or uncertain
Key elements remain contested: some commentators note Project 2025 does not itself mandate an explicit nationwide ban and that certain proposals—like creating a pregnancy registry—have been mischaracterized in public debate; others point out legal obstacles and likely litigation over attempts to withdraw FDA approvals or repurpose ancient laws . Reporting shows the plan favors rapid administrative action and litigation strategies that could be implemented quickly if embraced by an executive and defended by a DOJ willing to press novel readings of statutes .