Throughout the summer, you’ve likely heard the term “Project 2025” pop up regularly in the news and across social media connected to the upcoming presidential election. President Biden, Vice President Harris, and other lawmakers, pundits, and activists have all been referencing the nearly 1,000-page document in recent weeks and warning voters about the potential harm it could cause large portions of the population.
Project 2025 outlines several changes that would greatly impact women and mothers in multiple ways, including access to reproductive care, workplace protections and government assistance requirements.
Here’s what you need to know.
First things first: What is Project 2025?
Essentially, Project 2025 is a 900-page, 30-chapter “Presidential Transition” blueprint developed by over 100 conservative groups and organizations in the United States, primarily led by the Heritage Foundation. It’s designed as a comprehensive plan for implementing conservative policies across the federal government if a Republican president is elected in 2024.
The primary focus of Project 2025 involves a complete overhaul of the federal government—and is drawing significant criticism as a result. Critics argue that the plan represents an extreme ideological agenda that could dramatically alter or dismantle long-standing social programs, environmental protections, and civil rights safeguards. There are also concerns that the proposed changes to agencies like the EPA, Department of Education, and Department of Labor could weaken crucial regulations and protections for workers, students, and the environment.
Additionally, the project’s approach to healthcare reform, including potential changes to Medicare and Medicaid, has raised alarms about reduced access to healthcare for vulnerable populations. This would affect access to prenatal care, postpartum care, and general healthcare for mothers and children.
Another major point of contention is the project’s strategy for rapidly implementing these changes. Critics feel that the speed in which these policies are to be implemented bypasses normal checks and balances and consolidates power. Project 2025 could also lead to a lack of diverse perspectives in policy-making and potentially undermine the independence of federal agencies.
Also, the project’s proposals related to voting rights, immigration, and social programs are seen by many as regressive and potentially discriminatory toward lower-income and birthing populations. Overall, opponents argue that Project 2025 represents a radical departure from established governance norms and could lead to significant social, economic, and political upheaval if implemented.
You can read all about Project 2025 in its entirety here.
How do the plans outlined in Project 2025 negatively impact women and mothers?
The biggest key area, arguably, is reproductive rights. The policies outlined call for stricter abortion laws, potentially including a national ban on abortions after a certain gestational age. This could severely limit women’s reproductive choices and access to abortion services—even in cases of medical necessity or pregnancy resulting from rape or incest. Project 2025 also suggests reducing federal funding for family planning services, which could limit access to contraception and reproductive health education.
Childcare
According to Care.com, nearly two-thirds of American families are spending at least 20% of their income on child care. In most states, putting a baby in daycare now costs more than in-state college tuition. The conservatives who authored Project 2025 are clear about childcare: parents are on their own.
“Instead of providing universal daycare,” Project 2025 says on page 486, “funding should go to parents either to offset the cost of staying home with a child or to pay for familial, in-home childcare.” The plan also calls to eliminate the Head Start program, an early education program that would impact more than 750,000 children.
- The project proposes scaling back federal funding for childcare programs, including potential cuts to programs like the Child Care and Development Block Grant.
- It encourages more reliance on private and faith-based childcare providers rather than government-funded programs.
- The plan suggests reducing federal regulations on childcare providers, arguing that this would lower costs and increase availability.
- Instead of direct funding, Project 2025 favors tax credits or deductions to help families afford child care.
- The project advocates for shifting more control over childcare policies to the state level, reducing federal oversight.
- For any remaining federal assistance programs, there may be stricter work requirements for parents to qualify for childcare support.
Healthcare
Project 2025 proposes major changes to programs like Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act. These changes could disproportionately affect women, particularly low-income mothers who rely on these programs for prenatal care, postpartum care, and general healthcare for themselves and their children. The project also suggests rolling back certain mandates for insurance coverage of women’s health services, potentially making it more difficult or expensive for women to access essential care.
Chamber of Mothers reports that Project 2025 details plans to eliminate or reduce the few supports pregnant and postpartum people have, including access to mental health services and limiting access to contraceptives. Project 2025 lays out details to eliminate or reduce reproductive health, including ways to claw back FDA-approval of some drugs and enact a nationwide abortion ban.
It also recommends the following in regard to healthcare:
- That the next secretary of Health and Human Services eliminates the Reproductive Healthcare Access Task Force established by the Biden Administration before the reversal of Roe v. Wade.
- The creation of a “pro-life task force to ensure that all of the department’s divisions seek to use their authority to promote the life and health of women and their unborn children.”
- In a section titled “The Family Agenda,” Project 2025 recommends the Health and Human Services chief should “proudly state that men and women are biological realities,” and that “married men and women are the ideal, natural family structure because all children have a right to be raised by the men and women who conceived them.”
- It would eliminate access to abortion pills, despite the fact that abortion pills accounted for 63% of abortions in the U.S. in 2023, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
- Mass data collection on abortions using “every available tool, including the cutting of funds, to ensure that every state reports exactly how many abortions take place within its borders, at what gestational age of the child, for what reason, the mother’s state of residence, and by what method.”
Workplace policies
Project 2025’s proposals could have significant impacts on the workplace if implemented. In addition to the immense childcare restrictions mentioned above, the proposal also seeks to reduce labor regulations, union rights, discrimination protections—including those in place to protect vulnerable pregnant and postpartum workers—wage policies, parental leave, and more.
With a focus on “familial, in-home childcare,” that leaves working mothers with very limited options outside of being ejected from the workforce altogether.
Additionally, Project 2025 does not authorize a federal paid leave mandate, nor does it encourage employers to provide paid leave. Currently, paid leave proposals have depended on the Social Security Administration or the U.S. Department of Labor to administer the program.
Project 2025 proposes to reduce the size of these agencies, effectively making it more difficult to create and administer new programs. All of these changes, if enacted, could significantly alter the employer-employee relationship and the overall work environment in many industries.
The proposal includes many reforms to food assistance programs and other support systems that many low-income mothers rely on. It’s important to note that these changes, combined with proposed limitations to early childhood education programs and childcare policies, will place additional financial and logistical burdens on mothers—especially those in lower-income brackets.
What can we do?
While this piece only outlines portions of the entirety of Project 2025’s goals and plans, it’s a thorough education on what could lie ahead for women, mothers and other marginalized groups should the anti-democracy plans come to fruition.
You can visit Chamber of Mothers to see what positions are up for election in your state, and also find out if your voter registration is up-to-date.
Democracy Forward can also send out ways to mobilize and use your voice to educate and help others.
The American Civil Liberties Union has a petition in place to stop Project 2025. You can add your name here.
The National Urban League also offers a variety of ways to inspire community and civil engagement to stop the policies outlined in Project 2025.
