Polis, Wasserman Schulz warn against abortion ban in Project 2025

On each night of the Democratic National Convention, speakers held up a massive tome titled “The 2025 Project” and read excerpts from the Heritage Foundation’s proposed guidelines for a conservative president that would radically overhaul the federal government.

On Wednesday evening, Colorado Governor Jared Polis spoke about plans to bill a ban on legal abortion in the United States.

“Listen, this sounds crazy, but here on page 562 it says that Donald Trump could use an obscure 19th-century law to single-handedly ban abortion in all 50 states and even put doctors in jail,” Polis said. “Page 486 restricts contraception. Page 450 threatens access to in vitro fertilization. On page 455, Project 2025 says states must report miscarriages to the Trump administration.

“Page 451 says that the only legitimate family is a married couple, with only the father working. You know what? I’ll take it out. I’ll put it in my pocket so I can share it with undecided voters, so they can better understand what’s at stake in this election,” he said.

The extreme government makeover, dubbed Project 2025, is not an official Republican plan or an official Trump campaign plan, as former President Donald Trump and his staff have repeatedly claimed for weeks. Many of the people involved in the project are current or former Trump staffers and advisers.

Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schulz offers a ‘warning’ from Florida

The next speaker had personal knowledge of what abortion restrictions do. Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schulz said, “As a proud Floridian, I bring a warning to the people of my state. Project 2025 is not just a threat, it is a reality we face every day, from the classroom to the emergency room.

“Governor DeSantis has turned Florida into a testing ground for the most egregious, dangerous policies,” she said. “I can tell you firsthand that it has been devastating to families in my district and across the state.

“Today in Florida, state policy requires children to learn racist lies about the so-called benefits of slavery. Books are banned, teachers are censored, and our LGBTQ+ community endures endless state-sponsored hate, even the cruel ‘Don’t Say Gay’ school law. Today in Florida, as we grapple with record-breaking heat and rising seas, extreme MAGA Republicans have removed mentions of climate change from state law,” she said.

“Today, Florida’s near-total abortion ban threatens women’s health and lives.”

Watch: Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s Full DNC Speech

Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Democrat of Florida, took the stage at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

Wasserman Schultz told the story of a woman named Deborah, a Central Florida resident who says she learned at 23 weeks into her pregnancy that her baby’s kidneys had not developed and that both she and the fetus were in danger.

“Deborah couldn’t get the care she needed in Florida,” Wasserman Schulz said, “and she couldn’t afford to travel hundreds of miles to get it. She had no choice but to carry her son, Milo, to turn her over, only to watch him die in her arms two hours later. This is Project 2025 in action,” she said, attributing it to former President Donald Trump and his vice presidential nominee, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance.

“I say this as a Floridian, but also as a mother and an American: We cannot allow them to do to America what they did to Florida,” she said.

Floridians may notice that several of Project 2025’s plans mirror recent Florida laws under Gov. Ron DeSantis. But not in this case.

What is Project 2025?

The 2025 Project is a detailed roadmap from conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation and more than 100 conservative groups that a Republican president can use early in his new presidency to consolidate power and radically overhaul the federal government. It includes:

A 922-page political programme entitled ‘Mandate for Leadership 2025: The Conservatives’ Pledge’.
LinkedIn-style personal database to replace tens of thousands of civilian employees deemed insufficiently loyal
Academy of Presidential Administration
A Playbook for the First 180 Days of the Next (Republican) Administration

Project 2025’s website says it is “dismantling the unaccountable Deep State, taking power away from leftist elites and giving it back to the American people and an elected president.”

Critics say it is a deeply racist endeavor that aims to dismantle many protections and assistance programs for Americans of color and install a permanent, far-right conservative government with few checks and balances.

Some of the wide-ranging recommendations of Project 2025 include plans to transform up to 50,000 public servants into loyalty political appointees, abolish the Department of Education and the Head Start program, disband the Department of Homeland Security, disband the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), ban pornography (which is not defined), tighten immigration laws and mass deport millions of people, eliminate federal protections for abortion and restrict the sale of abortion pills and contraceptives, repeal the Affordable Care Act and cut Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, among many other thorny issues.

What are the abortion laws in Florida?

Florida’s 6-week abortion ban goes into effect May 1

Abortion clinics in Florida are now turning people away as a state ban goes into effect. Abortion rights will be on the state ballot in November.

Since May of this year in Florida, almost all abortions have been illegal after six weeks of pregnancy, before most women know they are pregnant.

The state’s previous 15-week ban, passed in 2022, went into effect a month earlier when the Florida Supreme Court overturned a 34-year-old decision that found the state constitution’s privacy provision protected a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy. But that ruling also prompted a more restrictive 6-week ban passed by the Florida Legislature last year that went into effect 30 days later.

Florida also has a 24-hour waiting period, meaning you’ll have to visit two clinics overflowing with patients before your appointment expires.

However, while the bill shortens the time pregnant women have to obtain an abortion, it does include some exceptions for rape and incest that were missing from the ban on pregnancies from 15 weeks, drawing criticism even from some supporters.

Florida law does provide exceptions for physical dangers to a pregnant woman, but only in extreme cases and with written testimony from two doctors, which many hospitals are reluctant to do. Doctors must be willing to risk possible fines, loss of licenses and even imprisonment by testifying against oversight boards and the state.

Abortion is permitted in cases of rape, incest or human trafficking, but only up to 15 weeks of pregnancy and only if the pregnant woman has copies of a “court order, police report, medical records or other court order or documentation” that proves she is a victim of rape or incest.

A constitutional amendment legalizing abortion until the fetus is viable outside the womb, which typically occurs between 23 and 24 weeks of pregnancy, will go on the ballot in November.

Is Project 2025 official Republican policy?

Trump’s Agenda 47 vs. Project 2025: What’s the Difference?

Agenda 47 is the Trump campaign’s outline proposal for what a second Trump administration would look like. How does it differ from Project 2025?

NO.

The Trump campaign has its own, much less detailed policy and transformation plan called Agenda 47, and Trump has sought to distance himself from the Project. Some of the policies overlap with Project 2025, but Project 2025 is not an official GOP plan.

But Project 2025 will likely still have a major impact on Trump’s incoming presidency. The Heritage Foundation boasts that during his first term, Trump adopted “nearly two-thirds of Heritage’s proposals in just one year in office.”

At least 31 of the project’s 38 creators were affiliated with the Trump administration. Trump’s new vice presidential nominee, J.D. Vance, wrote the introduction to a new book titled “Dawn’s Early Light: Taking Back Washington to Save America” by Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts. Earlier this month, when ProPublica uncovered dozens of Project 2025 training videos, 29 of the 36 speakers in the videos worked for Trump in some capacity.

Earlier this month, MSNBC uncovered a speech Trump gave at a 2022 Heritage Foundation event in which he said, “This is a wonderful group that will set the stage and lay out detailed plans for exactly what our movement will do and what your movement will do when the American people give us a colossal mandate to save America.”