Right-wing Manifesto Calls for Antiabortion Justice Department
A review of document shows a very conservative look at sex, reproductive freedom
I had the chance to go through the entire Project 2025 manifesto, which included contributions from more than 400 right-wing intellectuals about everything from agriculture to abortion.
The latter topic matters for my readers, along with all the other related information and perspectives included in the nearly 900-page plan that these influential groups hope Donald Trump adopts if he assumes office.
The thing that will most impact the abortion rights movement is what the manifesto advocates insofar as the Justice Department is concerned. First, they want the FBI and Attorney General to enforce the Comstock Laws, which forbid the distribution of abortifacients in the mail.
Congress enacted those laws before Margaret Sanger, who led the charge against them. The Supreme Court eventually nullified them with their landmark decisions protecting birth control and abortion. Now that Roe is no longer the law of the land, antiabortion activists and lawyers have said these laws are now back on the books because lawmakers had never repealed them.
Some troubling aspects affect everyone, even those outside of the abortion rights movement. The manifesto calls for the FBI to be put under the command of an assistant attorney general, appointed by the President and not confirmed by Congress. This person would supersede the Attorney General in getting the FBI to do what he or she wants. If I’m reading this correctly, the most critical law enforcement agency would not be answering to the AG but to a separate official operating under the President’s orders.
Additionally, the intellectuals behind the agenda called for more lax enforcement of the Freedom to Access Clinic Entrances Act and more investigation into organizations that they claim attacked crisis pregnancy centers. I reported on this two years ago, and two groups–Ruth Sent Us and Jane’s Revenge–were small groups whose alleged crimes included light vandalism and supposed threats that may have been blown out of proportion. That created the pretext for Congressional condemnation and conflation of antiabortion terrorism with a portrayed aggressiveness from a group of people who were most likely demonized and mischaracterized middle-aged women.
The other possibility was that it was completely fabricated and orchestrated to create the perception that both sides have fringe groups capable of terrible things. Framing enemies is not new to politics in America or elsewhere.
The combination of reordering the chain of FBI command with the creation of a non-existent threat has potential ramifications for the abortion rights movement. Things like wiretaps and monitoring of activists and providers are legitimate possibilities and could bring with them concerns for civil liberty infringements.
Focusing criminal investigations on liberal groups has become popular in some conservative circles. Texas AG Ken Paxton was recently the subject of an article that said he used his prosecutorial power to dig into the activities of groups he politically disagreed with. If embezzlement or impropriety exists, a crime is a crime even if a liberal commits it. But it’s fair to say those crimes aren’t exclusive to the nonprofits associated with the Democratic Party. It also happens with Republican groups that haven’t been subjected to the same scrutiny.
There are potential privacy violations even if it’s not the Justice Department that does it. The manifesto also calls for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to gather a variety of information on women who get abortions, including the reasons why they opted for one. That puts doctors in a position to ask the patient and record their reasoning or justification. They also want to fund studies with the desire to promote the benefits of childbirth and highlight the risks of abortions.
Additionally, the writers wanted Planned Parenthood investigated for violating the law when it took PPP loans from the Small Business Association. Those loans were taken out by separate affiliates that operate independently.
The manifesto says President Joe Biden disincentivizes work and subsidizes single motherhood. It calls for supporting policies that are geared toward traditional nuclear families. Strangely, it says situations where a single mother has a boyfriend instead of the father are potentially damaging.
One of the experts included was Roger Severino, the Office of Civil Rights director at the HHS during the Trump Administration. He called for the FDA to rescind approval of abortion medication.
Predictably, it called for the gag rule on foreign NGOs performing abortions. If they decide to do so, then they can’t be eligible for American foreign aid. The writers also call for an elimination of the Gender Policy Council, which was a department created by President Joe Biden to advance gender equity and to have it replaced with an antiabortion special assistant to the president. It’s against fetal tissue research.
One of the more out-of-left-field recommendations was to call for the imprisonment of pornographers and for tech companies that spread it to be closed. The manifesto said pornography is as addictive and harmful as any drug.
Given the heavy amount of pornographic consumption among young conservative, as well as liberal, men–particularly those who are sexually inactive or Incels as they are known–I’m not sure how that policy would play out, even among the Republican base. It also operates from the premise that it’s educators and librarians who are spreading pornography instead of a teenager using his computer at home when his parents aren’t around. The manifesto calls for the hypothetical librarian or teacher to be registered as a sex offender.
I’ve never encountered a situation that supposedly happened, either as a newspaper reporter or when I was a teenage man. To be honest with you, the manifesto seems like it’s as perplexed by young male sexuality as they are by young female sexuality.
And yet, it condemns what it calls “sex-promoting” education. If weaning young men off pornography was a goal, and some feminists as well as conservatives may and have agreed on that, then it seems like helping them develop healthy sexual habits and perceptions would help. Honest discussions about what a healthy sexuality would look like should be part of any education provided in high school. That means permitting sex education teachers the openness needed to do that.
Additionally, including more women’s history and feminist texts within curriculums would also help young men develop healthier views of women and have an easier time forming meaningful platonic and sexual relationships.
As revolutionary as it sounds, teenagers safely having actual sex with condoms and reproductive care available if needed would produce a far happier and healthier world of well-adjusted adults than the pornographic-addled society we now live in. But that’s anathema to evangelicals.
I’m not sermonizing, either. That’s just a recommendation for what rhetoric to adopt when arguing for reality-based sex education.
I included a PDF below if you’re curious about the rest of the manifesto.
