How to Talk to Your Friends About Project 2025's Abortion Policies

Because Christian Nationalist Republicans have been more successful than most people think (Scroll to the end to listen)

Photo by freestocks on Unsplash

Project 2025 defines life as “from conception to natural death.” Where conception = fertilization.

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.

Project 2025, page 450

Day One in the above paragraph is fertilization, not one’s actual birth day. We also have a hidden reference to the Bible, specifically Psalm 139:13 - 14 KJV, where David writes:

For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother's womb (aka the moment of conception - ALW). I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.

Forced-birth policies touted in Project 2025 include:

• a nationwide abortion ban from fertilization with no exceptions for rape, incest, or the life of the mother (I allude to this here.)

  What Does "Forced Birth Can Be the Greatest Healing Agent" Mean?

• utilizing the Comstock Act to outlaw the shipment of contraception, thus severely restricting access to all forms of contraception or banning them entirely (I wrote about this here.)

  Reader Question: What Does Project 2025 Say About Birth Control?

• a nationwide ban on IVF procedures because frozen embryos are “extrauterine children” (@Jessica Valenti wrote an excellent newsletter on the Alabama IVF ruling here.)

• using the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to track all pregnancy outcomes nationwide (I wrote about this here.)

  Project 2025: How Christian Nationalist Sincerely Held Religious Beliefs Arm the CDC for Surveillance

Let’s go through each bullet point and discuss how far Christo-fascist Republicans have gotten with implementing Project 2025 forced birth policies at the red-state level.

Abortion Bans

Abortion is banned at either conception (fertilization) or at 6 weeks in the following states: Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, Indiana, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Texas, Oklahoma, South Dakota, North Dakota, and Idaho.

Seventeen states have effectively banned abortion from conception, because most women don’t know they are pregnant at 6 weeks. I included Florida in the paragraph above because the state Supreme Court upheld a 15-week abortion ban, paving the way for a 6-week abortion ban to go into effect on 1 May 2024.

Abortion is banned between 12 and 18 weeks in four states: Nebraska, North Carolina, Arizona, and Utah. (And since I wrote this, Arizona has totally banned abortion. So 18 states with total bans. 3 states with bans between 12 and 18 weeks. Sorry I didn’t re-record the audio but I was too busy curled up on the floor crying for people with uteri.)

Access to abortion is disputed in four states: Wisconsin, Iowa, Montana, and Wyoming.

Abortion is legal in the remaining twenty-five states.

Source: The Guardian

Here are a few abortion ban talking points:

• Republicans have already managed to ban, severely restrict, or threaten abortion in HALF of the United States. (Now more than half.) Their control of red state houses is a precursor to how they will ban abortion from conception (fertilization) nationwide if they win in November.

• Think you’re safe because you live in a blue state? Project 2025 calls for a withholding of federal funds when states refuse to obey federal mandates. A nationwide abortion ban would be a federal mandate.

• Exceptions aren’t real. Most states require a police report to prove rape or incest.

• Doctors don’t know if or when they will be prosecuted for using their medical judgment to save a woman’s life. Abortion ban exceptions are intentionally vague to prevent doctors from performing abortions.

The Comstock Act and Banning Contraception

Project 2025 calls for implementing the Comstock Act to outlaw abortion nationwide, but Christo-fascist Republicans have already signaled a willingness to use it to ban birth control. Because let me type this again for those at the back of the room: The Comstock Act doesn’t ban certain types of contraception; it bans the mailing of ALL contraception.

Justices Alito and Thomas brought up Comstock during arguments in the recent mifepristone case. They did not treat it as an obscure relic of 19th century law. They demanded to know why the law was ignored in shipping mifepristone.

Far-right leaders are attacking hormonal birth control at every opportunity. Take a gander at this Salon headline from last Friday:

A few Comstock/contraception ban talking points:

• If a Republican administration and Congress applied the Comstock Act, it would prohibit shipment of contraception nationwide. Blue states would not escape these restrictions.

• Only 13 states and the District of Columbia have legal protections for contraception.

• The Right To Contraception Act was proposed in 2022. It passed the House but failed to surmount the Senate filibuster. It has not been reintroduced.

• Also this:

  

  I don’t write about myself a lot here, but this note is the most viral thing I’ve ever posted on Substack. This story could describe anyone with a uterus who lives in a red state right now.

Banning IVF

Christo-fascist Republicans want to ban IVF for several reasons. Use them as talking points.

1. Christian Nationalists believe frozen embryos are human beings because sperm fertilized egg. Besides, David said God knew him in the womb. (See Bible verses mentioned earlier.)

2. IVF has enabled women to get higher educations and advanced degrees. It has also delayed marriage and childbirth. Christo-fascist Republicans want to force women to get pregnant younger when they are more fertile, thus removing opportunities to have careers outside the home.

3. IVF also makes it possible for same-sex couples to have children. Of course, Christo-fascist Republicans won’t stand for LGBTQIA+ couples to create families.

Using the CDC to track all pregnancy outcomes

Project 2025 calls for turning the CDC into a pregnancy and transgender surveillance unit. In my referenced newsletter above, I outlined how they call for withholding federal funds for states that refuse to report pregnancy data.

Talking points:

• Women could be prosecuted for any pregnancy outcome that doesn’t result in a live birth. According to the Lancet, around 23 million miscarriages occur worldwide every year. Imagine how many women could be accused of trying to end their pregnancies when they have a miscarriage. We’ve already seen one Ohio woman, Brittany Watts, be arrested for her miscarriage. This case wasn’t a weird outlier. It is what Republicans intend to do to women who miscarry: Interrogate them while they are bereft and emotionally strained, and accuse them of causing their own miscarriages.

• The tradition of doing at-home pregnancy tests and celebrating news as a couple is also under threat. If every pregnancy must be tracked to a live birth, every pregnancy test must be administered by a medical professional in a public setting.

How are you talking about abortion bans and attacks on reproductive freedom in your communities? Share talking points that have worked for you in the comments. Because the more persuasive we can be, the better our chances to defeat Christian Nationalist Republicans in November.