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Dear John,
Project 2025 embodies an agenda led by the Heritage Foundation to revise, reorganize and eliminate vast portions of the statutes, rules and norms that were built over decades, and that have guided our democracy and preserved our freedoms during Republican and Democratic administrations alike. Embodied in a 900-page document entitled “Mandate for Leadership – The Conservative Promise,” and developed in collaboration with more than 100 other organizations, Project 2025 would dramatically change both.
It is important to stress that recent changes in the Project’s leadership alter neither the document’s text nor the “Mandate for Leadership” that lies behind it. The president of the Heritage Foundation has made clear that the policy work has been completed as scheduled and their efforts to build a personnel apparatus to carry out this work at all levels of government continues.
All of us, and lawyers in particular, have a role to play in discussing with others the nature of the proposed changes and how they endanger our freedom. To facilitate those discussions, Lawyers Defending American Democracy is publishing a series of “Talking Points” that highlight changes Project 2025 is intent on making and their potential effect.
Each Talking Point will quote directly from a section of the document and explain its impact on our democracy, our freedom, and the rule of law. Please share this information widely with your friends, family, and colleagues in the upcoming months.
A Federal Ban on Abortion through Agency Action, without Legislation (Page 450)
“From the moment of conception, every human being possesses inherent dignity and worth… The Secretary [of the Department of Health and Human Services] 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.”
Why it Matters: Talking Points
This assertion is intended to codify the radical concept of fetal personhood, which claims that a fertilized egg (as well as an embryo and fetus) has all of the rights a living child has after being born. It is a theological doctrine, not science or objective fact.
It is also a pathway to a federal ban on all abortions through agency action. Critically, Project 2025 lays out specific recommendations for the Department of Health and Human Services to implement measures that would prevent the use of long-accepted medications for abortions. The sweeping recommendations throughout Project 2025 would effectively establish fetal personhood through agency rules and regulations, and without Congressional legislation or vote.
Under the doctrine of fetal personhood, any abortion – no matter how early in pregnancy or how endangered the mother’s life might be – would constitute murder, with no exceptions for rape, incest, or the mother’s health. In vitro fertilization (IVF) and other procedures could similarly be crimes. Even automobile accidents resulting in miscarriage could be manslaughter. Other consequences are easy to imagine.
The concept of fetal personhood would destroy the freedom to make individual healthcare decisions. It also would elevate one religious point of view over others, violating the principles of religious freedom established in the First Amendment. Fundamentalist attacks on other freedoms would not be far behind.
Visit our website [[link removed]] for more on our Project 2025 Talking Points Series.
T hank you for your dedication to maintaining our democracy. Please support our efforts by donating [[link removed]] to LDAD and by sending this email to your networks. As always, please also feel free to reach out to us at [email protected] [[email protected]] if you may be interested in volunteering or if you wish to share your ideas.
Lawyers Defending American Democracy
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