Project 2025, as you have probably heard, is the 900+-page monstrosity (in all senses of the word) created by the Heritage Foundation and their ilk to remake the federal government in their own fascist image. They figure nobody will read it, and there are summaries available online. But here is a somewhat scannable pdf version, where we can do a deep dive without increasing traffic at the Project 2025 site. There is a ton to unpack, and whenever I write a WOW column this year, I’ll try to pick out a new area that will severely impact women’s lives. I’ll start, of course, with “Section 3: The General Welfare,” chapter 14, “Department of Health and Human Services”. These are their plans for reproductive healthcare:
[To be clear, I will summarise Project 2025’s claims. I do not believe nor endorse them, but want you to be familiar with them; this will be too cumbersome if I debunk all of their claims, so I will pick and choose, but you are free to assume that I agree with none of it.]
According to the authors of Project 2025, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has “lost its way,” with a drop in life expectancy, and of course it’s all Biden’s fault that we are now “sicker, poorer, and more divided”. Project 2025 has “five cross-cutting goals” in areas “that most need reform”. Most of their attacks on reproductive rights are contained in Goal #1:
Goal #1: Protecting Life, Conscience, and Bodily Integrity:
”The Secretary should pursue a robust agenda to protect the fundamental right to life, protect conscience rights, and uphold bodily integrity”— there is, of course, no acknowledgement that upholding bodily integrity of a fetus necessarily invades the bodily integrity of a pregnant person:
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. The Secretary must ensure that all HHS programs and activities are rooted in a deep respect for innocent human life from day one until natural death: Abortion and euthanasia are not health care.
Of course yes, abortion and euthanasia are health care.
The horse crap rolls on, stating that there will be more “respect for the sacred rights of conscience,” which will increase “choices for patients and program beneficiaries and furthers pluralism and tolerance”. How a woman in need of abortion care at a hospital that refuses such care has increased choices is not explained. They further roll over transgender rights, so are hardly demonstrating pluralism nor tolerance. And they wind up this section with:
The next Secretary must ensure that HHS programs protect children’s minds and bodies and that HHS programs respect parents’ basic right to direct the upbringing, education,and care of their children.
So you may not provide consent for your children’s transgender care, but that is respecting your basic right to care for your children. Got that?
There is much more, including the “rights” of states to determine how their states conduct health care, but this stuff easily becomes tl;dr, so I’ll stop here for this evening. But please, if you know young people of childbearing age, let them know the plan. Doctors will have their “conscience rights” protected. Pregnant people will not.
Clik here to view.
Update 1145 PM: In light of this evening’s news (that Donald $Rump was shot at a rally), I want to make clear that violence will not work, there are plenty of a-holes to replace any dead or injured a-holes; and violence might very well beget more violence in retaliation. So we win the war by changing hearts and minds, voting, protesting, writing, singing, and other peaceful means of improving the system.