Project 2025

The 2025 Presidential Transition Project—or “Project 2025,” for short—has “four pillars”:

  1. an 887-page policy agenda,
  2. a presidential personnel database of vetted conservatives,
  3. a Presidential Administration Academy to train these people to achieve the Project 2025 policy agenda, and
  4. a 180-day playbook, which is what they hope to achieve in the first 180 days if Trump takes office in January 2025.

Inside Liberty University’s Secret Maternity Home

Imagine you’re a pregnant teenager in 1972. Abortion isn’t an option, and you’re not ready to get married… so you might turn to a maternity home for unwed mothers. You’ll live there until the baby is born, then give it up for adoption to redeem yourself from the so-called sin of premarital sex.

On June 23, podcast studio Wondery released the new series Liberty Lost, which investigates the well-kept secret of Liberty University’s Godparent Home, which opened in the 1980s and is still operating today. In the podcast, reproductive rights journalist T. J. Raphael explores the history of the maternity home on the campus of Liberty University, a private evangelical college in Lynchburg, Va. There, staff members coerce young girls into surrendering their babies for adoption by affluent Christian parents in exchange for a full-ride scholarship at Liberty. 

“Maternity homes are on the rise,” Raphael told me. “There might be one near where you live, and maternity homes play a larger role within the wider antiabortion movement.”

Five Ways the GOP Is Quietly Paving the Road to a National Abortion Ban

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The vast majority of Americans support abortion and reproductive freedom, yet state lawmakers continue to introduce and pass laws stripping citizens of these rights. Providers face confusing, punitive rules that might lead them to delay or deny care. Planned Parenthood and other providers face budget cuts that threaten to restrict healthcare access for millions of Americans.

These are not isolated outcomes. Rather, they reveal a coordinated national strategy. Here are five myths we believe need to be dispelled to counter the challenges that lie ahead.

The Supreme Court’s Ruling on National Injunctions Will Hurt Us All—Immigrants First

In a 6-3 decision last Friday, the Supreme Court granted the Trump administration a partial, but crucial, victory in its efforts to stop federal courts from blocking Trump’s agenda.

The vehicle for this power grab, CASA v. Trump, is a case about the legality of denying citizenship to children born to parents who are in the U.S. unlawfully or temporarily. In the majority’s ruling that nationwide injunctions were probably outside the federal judiciary’s authority, and therefore, judges should limit their orders to the parties and plaintiffs before them, it has tipped the balance of power to the president. And that is going to make many people’s lives—immigrants and nonimmigrants alike—much more difficult.

Three Years After Dobbs, a Coordinated Campaign Aims to Eliminate Abortion Pills Nationwide

Medication abortion has become the most popular form of abortion in the U.S. post-Dobbs, providing potentially lifesaving access to people residing in states with abortion bans in place. Because of this, the antiabortion right-wing machine’s dogged attacks on mifepristone should be seen for what they are: an attempt at a backdoor national abortion ban.

Revoking access to mifepristone is key in the antiabortion machine’s fight to maintain control over pregnant women’s bodies and lives.

Juneteenth Calls for Economic Justice, Not Trump’s Racially Coded Gimmicks

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As Juneteenth approaches, we are called to remember not just the day when the last enslaved Black Americans learned of their freedom, but the ongoing struggle for true justice and equality in this country.

In this context, Donald Trump’s economic and immigration policies—packaged as efforts to “Make America Great Again”—take on a more troubling meaning. They are not just policy proposals; they are part of a deliberate strategy to reinforce racial divides, undermining the very ideals that Juneteenth represents.

‘An Abortion Saved My Life After I Got Leukemia’

Mom Abby Blum tells why she was forced her to end her much-wanted pregnancy. She warns that an unexpected tragic event can happen to any woman—even if they think they’ll never need an abortion.

“It felt like an impossible choice, but I decided to go ahead and have the abortion to end my pregnancy so I could start the treatment I needed to save my life. … For me, the abortion was a medical necessity. And, in hindsight, I realize that in the post-Roe v. Wade era, I was lucky to be in a state where I had access to an abortion and to all the healthcare that I needed. ….

“If I had lived in a state like Texas, which bans abortion in nearly all cases, my story would have had a very different ending. I didn’t choose to get cancer and to have to make the decision to end my pregnancy, but that’s what can sometimes happen in life.”

Illinois Lawmakers Pursue Creative Path to Protect Mifepristone Access—Even if FDA Revokes Approval

While antiabortion extremists work to eliminate mifepristone from the shelves—and the FDA faces mounting antiabortion political pressure to revoke its approval—Illinois lawmakers are fighting back with a legal firewall: a first-of-its-kind bill to keep abortion pills on the market, even if the Trump administration bans them.

The Illinois General Assembly has passed HB 3637, legislation allowing clinicians to prescribe drugs removed from the FDA’s approved list—as long as the World Health Organization still recommends them. Under the bill, Illinois clinicians could continue prescribing and dispensing the abortion medication mifepristone—even if the Trump administration rolls back the FDA’s longstanding approval of the medication. The legislation now awaits the signature of Illinois Governor J.D. Pritzker.

War on Women Report: Texas Woman Jailed for Miscarriage; Maine Advances Law to Protect Abortion Pill Prescribers’ Identities; Louisiana Intensifies Legal Attacks on N.Y. Abortion Provider

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MAGA Republicans are back in the White House, and Project 2025 is their guide—the right-wing plan to turn back the clock on women’s rights, remove abortion access, and force women into roles as wives and mothers in the “ideal, natural family structure.” We know an empowered female electorate is essential to democracy. That’s why day after day, we stay vigilant in our goals to dismantle patriarchy at every turn. We are watching, and we refuse to go back. This is the War on Women Report.

Since our last report:
—A judge struck down federal regulations that required U.S. employers to give workers paid time off for abortions.
—Catholic cardinals elected the first American pope, Chicago-born Robert Francis Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV. He has strongly opposed abortion and expressed hesitancy over IVF.
—Some good news out of North Carolina: After a six-month legal battle, Republican Jefferson Griffin has conceded the North Carolina Supreme Court race to Democrat Allison Riggs.
—Earlier this month, the FDA approved the first at-home replacement for Pap smears.

… and more.

Orwell’s ‘1984’ Is Now—Thanks to Trump’s Playbook of Reversal, Gaslighting and Control

Many have fallen for Trump’s lies—or don’t care about the truth. His cronies hope to acclimatize us, like a frog in warming water, to the atrocities of Trump’s authoritarian regime. If we continue down our current trajectory, I fear we are destined to become the controlled and manipulated society of Orwell’s 1984.

To think clearly, we must challenge their lies and relentlessly, loudly and clearly speak the truth. And we must invest in science, higher education, open debate and critical thinking without fear of penalty.

Republican Efforts to Defund Planned Parenthood Would Increase Budget Deficit $300 Million

The House Rules Committee is set to meet at 1 a.m. ET on May 21 to discuss Medicaid funding cuts that would essentially defund Planned Parenthood. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that blocking patients from using their Medicaid insurance plan to obtain sexual and reproductive healthcare at Planned Parenthood clinics would increase the deficit by $300 million.

“The fact of the matter is, if Republicans get their way—if they succeed in shutting the doors of Planned Parenthood clinics across the country—millions of women will have nowhere else to turn,” said Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.). “After all, two-thirds of Planned Parenthood health centers are in rural and medically underserved areas—places where there’s already a shortage of clinics and healthcare professionals. And for a lot of these patients, Planned Parenthood is literally the only provider in reach and in budget. They literally can’t afford to lose this care.”