Project 2025, a 900+ page documentThe Heritage Foundation. “Mandate for Leadership The Conservative Promise Project 2025 Presidential Transition Project,” 2023, https://static.project2025.org/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf.
created by the Heritage Foundation, serves as a playbook to systematically dismantle the foundation of checks and balances that American democracy rests upon.Reproductive Freedom for All. “Gutting Abortion Access Under Project 2025,” July 17, 2024, https://www.americanprogress.org/article/project-2025s-plan-to-gut-checks-and-balances-harms-the-american-people/ This extensive plan will not only give unlimited, unchecked power to the President, but also threaten and strip away reproductive rights and freedom, allow states to ban labor unions, harm people’s ability to access affordable, quality healthcare and reduce economic security and equity for American people. This plan outlines extremist ideas that seem far-fetched – but it is very likely that parts, if not the entire blueprint, may be enacted in the near future. If implemented, Project 2025 would serve as a draconian tool to harm the health and well-being of women and families and decimate our basic freedoms.Reproductive Freedom for All. “Gutting Abortion Access Under Project 2025,” July 17, 2024, https://www.americanprogress.org/article/project-2025s-plan-to-gut-checks-and-balances-harms-the-american-people/
Attacks on Reproductive Freedom and Women’s Health
Project 2025 effectively calls for a nationwide ban on abortion care, including by enforcing the Comstock Act to prohibit the mailing of medication abortion and supplies used in abortion procedures, ending access to emergency abortion care under the Emergency Medical and Labor Treatment Act (EMTALA), and embedding fetal personhood into the law.⁴Reproductive Freedom for All. “Gutting Abortion Access Under Project 2025,” July 17, 2024, https://www.americanprogress.org/article/project-2025s-plan-to-gut-checks-and-balances-harms-the-american-people/ Together, these actions would decimate access to abortion care for roughly 75 million women of reproductive ageKatherine Gallagher Robbins, Shaina Goodman and Josia Klein, “State Abortion Bans Harm More than 15 Million Women of Color,” National Partnership for Women & Families, June 2023, https://nationalpartnership.org/report/state-abortion-bans-harm-woc/ imperiling their health and economic security. This would disproportionately harm Black, Indigenous, and other women of color, the LGBTQ community, young people, disabled people, and immigrants, whose access to health care is already unequal.Katherine Gallagher Robbins, Shaina Goodman and Josia Klein, “State Abortion Bans Harm More than 15 Million Women of Color,” National Partnership for Women & Families, June 2023, https://nationalpartnership.org/report/state-abortion-bans-harm-woc/ And if fetal personhood language is enacted into law it would not only ban abortion, but potentially also forms of birth control and fertility treatments like IVF.
Project 2025 would dramatically increase surveillance of and criminalization risks for pregnant people, including by mandating data collection for all abortions in the country.Ali Velshi, “Dobbs was ‘just the beginning:’ Inside Project 2025’s attack on abortion,” MSNBC, July 29, 2024, https://www.msnbc.com/top-stories/latest/project-2025-abortion-trump-rcna164125 This would include tracking people who get abortions and threatening to cut funding for states who refuse to participate in surveillance.Ali Velshi, “Dobbs was ‘just the beginning:’ Inside Project 2025’s attack on abortion,” MSNBC, July 29, 2024, https://www.msnbc.com/top-stories/latest/project-2025-abortion-trump-rcna164125 This will exacerbate harms to Black women and other women of color, who are already subject to over-surveillance and criminalization.Katherine Gallagher Robbins, Shaina Goodman and Josia Klein, “State Abortion Bans Harm More than 15 Million Women of Color,” National Partnership for Women & Families, June 2023, https://nationalpartnership.org/report/state-abortion-bans-harm-woc/
Project 2025 would increase prosecutions of health care professionals who provide abortion care. This threat is already undermining high-quality maternity care by forcing many providers to leave states with abortion bans, exacerbating existing maternity care deserts.MiQuel Davies and Meera Rajput, “Dobb’s Erosion of the Healthcare Workforce: Harms to Providers and Patients,” March 2024, https://nationalpartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/dobbs-erosion-health-care-workforce.pdf Project 2025 will likely intensify the maternal health crisis, especially for Black women and birthing people who are three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than their white counterparts.Donna L. Hoyert, Ph.D.,.”Maternal mortality Rates in the United States, 2021,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, March 2023, https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/maternal-mortality/2021/maternal-mortality-rates-2021.htm
Project 2025 would unravel the Affordable Care Act, which would leave millions of women without health insurance and health care protections.Madeline Morcelle, “Authoritarian Project 2025 Agenda Endangers the Future of Medicaid and The Affordable Care Act,” National Health Law Program, September 2024, https://healthlaw.org/authoritarian-project-2025-agenda-endangers-the-future-of-medicaid-and-the-affordable-care-act/ Women are the primary consumers of health care, so losing ACA protections would disproportionately threaten their overall health, economic security and well-being.U.S. Department of Labor. “General Facts on Women and Job Based Health,” https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/ebsa/about-ebsa/our-activities/resource-center/fact-sheets/women-and-job-based-health.pdf; K.D. Bertakis, R. Azari, L.J. Helms, E.J. Callahan, J.A. Robbins, “Gender differences in the utilization of health care
services.,” J Fam Pract., 2000 Feb;49(2):147-52. PMID: 10718692 Without the ACA, women would lose guaranteed coverage for no-cost preventive care such as birth control, breastfeeding support, well-woman visits, STI counseling and testing, and interpersonal and domestic violence screening and counseling.National Partnership for Women and Families. “Repealing the ACA Endangers Women’s Health and Financial Security,” December 2016, https://nationalpartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/repealing-the-aca-endangers-womens-health-and-financial-security.pdf Many women would also lose access to affordable health care, including primary care, maternity services, and mental health care.National Partnership for Women and Families. “Repealing the ACA Endangers Women’s Health and Financial Security,” December 2016, https://nationalpartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/repealing-the-aca-endangers-womens-health-and-financial-security.pdf
Undermining Workplace Justice for Women and Families
Project 2025 targets workers’ right to organize, including by allowing states to ban labor unions in the private sector, end unions mid-contract, and fire workers who participate in collective action or organizing.AFL-CIO. (n.d.). Project 2025 and Unions. Retrieved 6 September 2024, https://betterinaunion.org/project-2025; The
Heritage Foundation. (2023) “Mandate for Leadership The Conservative Promise Project 2025 Presidential Transition Project,” Retrieved 6 September 2024, from: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24088042-project-2025s-mandate-for-leadership-the-conservative-promise; Glass, A. (2024, June). Project 2025 would undo the NLRB’s progress on Protecting Workers’ right to organize. Retrieved 6 September 2024 from Center for American Progress website: https://www.americanprogress.org/article/project-2025-would-undo-the-nlrbs-progress-on-protecting-workers-right-to-organize/ Unions have been a critical tool in raising wages, creating safer working conditions, and protecting workers from retaliatory firing. Union representation helps reduce disparities, such as helping to close the wage gap by nearly 40% for women workers.U.S. Department of Labor Blog. (2022, February 15). Want Equal Pay? Get a Union. [Blog Post] Retrieved 6 September 2024, from https://blog.dol.gov/2022/02/15/want-equal-pay-get-a-union For Black and Hispanic households, the wealth gap is also smaller when families have a union member.
Project 2025 attacks overtime pay, which would leave millions of lower-income workers without pay that they have earned.The Heritage Foundation. (2023) “Mandate for Leadership The Conservative Promise Project 2025 Presidential Transition Project,” Retrieved 18 September 2024, from: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24088042-project-2025s-mandate-for-leadership-the-conservative-promise Women of color and disabled women, in particular, are disproportionately likely to hold lower paying jobs and are in even greater need of compensation for their additional time.Mason, J., & Gallagher Robbins, K. (2023, March). Women’s Work Is Undervalued, and It’s Costing Us Billions. Retrieved 18 September 2024 from National Partnership for Women & Families website: https://nationalpartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/womens-work-is-undervalued.pdf Project 2025 wants employers to be able to offer “time-and-a-half” pay – how overtime is calculated now – or accumulate “time-and-a-half paid time off” to employees. If workers are only offered “time-anda-half paid time off”, any overtime worked would be converted to time off at an undetermined point in the future. Furthermore, Project 2025 seeks to reinstate a former overtime regulation, which would leave over 4 million workers working extra hours without additional compensation. Workers should, and must, be paid in exchange for their labor. These predatory policies leave workers vulnerable to employer-abuse and wage theft rubber-stamped by the government.
Project 2025 calls for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to be stripped of critical authority, which would leave millions of workers without any safeguards, and employers without guidance on navigating rights in the workplace. The EEOC enforces essential federal laws designed to prevent discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, or genetic information, protections that impact millions of workers and are critical for women, especially women of color. The EEOC is necessary to prevent workplace harm and hold employers accountable for discriminatory conduct.U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. (n.d.). EEOC History: 1964 – 1969. Retrieved 6 September 2024, from https://www.eeoc.gov/history/eeoc-history-1964-1969
