In a stark demonstration of their continued opposition to reproductive rights, the conservative think tank, Heritage Foundation has unveiled Project 2025 — a blueprint for a possible future Trump administration — that takes a stringent stance on abortion. The 920-page document mentions abortion no fewer than 199 times, reflecting the issue’s prominence in the foundation’s conservative agenda.
The foundation suggests in its ‘Forward’ section that the recent Dobbs decision is just the beginning, urging conservatives to push as hard as possible to protect the unborn, noting that “The Dobbs decision is just the beginning.” It also proposes that the Department of Health and Human Services be renamed the “Department of Life,” underscoring the staunch pro-life ethos of the blueprint.
In a sweeping approach, the mandate targets every aspect of reproductive health care. This includes medication abortion—the mandate views “abortion pills” as the “single greatest threat to unborn children in a post-Roe world.”
But medication abortion is not the only target. The mandate recommends that both the morning-after pill and men’s contraceptives be eliminated from Affordable Care Act coverage, and proposes cracking down on what it terms as ‘mail-order abortions’. Under this proposed measure, the 19th-century Comstock Act would be employed to prosecute those who send abortion pills or related medical supplies through mail.
What Project 2025 refers to as “abortion tourism” is also in its crosshairs. The document outlines a plot to curb instances where women must travel to other states for medical care not available in their home states. The mandate suggests that the CDC implement obligatory data collection for all abortions nationwide, and threatens to cut funding to any state that resists such surveillance.
Importantly, it is emphasized in several parts of the document, such as in the section on the HHS proposal, that Project 2025 believes life begins at conception, a concept also known as fetal personhood. This belief defines a fertilized egg as a person right from conception, with the same rights as anyone else.
Laws that establish fetal personhood and mandate doctors to treat fetuses—even when the pregnant person’s life is at risk—ultimately act as abortion bans. And any policy that declares “life begins at conception” is an abortion ban that may result in miscarriage patients being denied critical care to save their lives.
The harsh reality is that we live in a time where abortion is already banned in 21 states, with total bans in place in 14 of them. The consequences of such restrictions are dire, as seen in the case of Amanda Zurawski who, during her pregnancy, was denied an urgently needed abortion under Texas law, resulting in severe, potentially fatal health complications.
This scenario, replicated across states with severe abortion restrictions, paints a grim picture of the reality of living under governments upholding fetal personhood, a reality Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 aims to realize.
The Dobbs decision, Project 2025 reminds us, is just the beginning.
