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What Does Project 2025 Say?

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On November 5, 2024, the United States Elected Donald J. Trump to a second term. The day after that, his allies gleefully admitted that Project 2025 was their – and his – agenda the entire time.

This is what we’re up against.

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On November 5, 2024, the United States Elected Donald J. Trump to a second term. The day after that, his allies gleefully admitted that Project 2025 was their – and his – agenda the entire time.

This is what we’re up against.

Check My Voter Registration
Register To Vote
“For the first time, the VA is allowing access to abortion services, a medical procedure unrelated to military service that the VA lacks the legal authority and clinical proficiency to perform. In addition to continuing the grotesque culture of violence against the child in the womb, these sociopolitical initiatives and ideological indoctrinations distract from the department’s core missions.”
Citation: Project 2025, Section 3.11: Department of Veterans Affairs, Brooks D. Tucker, page 674, paragraph 3
Context:

On September 9, 2022, a rule went into place that said that the VA will provide abortion counseling and abortions in cases of rape, incest, or a threat to the mother’s life to veterans and their eligible family members. It was hardly an endorsement of elective abortions. The VA previously did not provide abortions for veterans under any circumstances and did not allow its providers to counsel patients about the procedure.

“The move is a direct result of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade this summer, which set off a wave of abortion bans and restrictions around the country. VA leaders said those restrictions created “urgent risks” for veterans and forced the agency to act. “This expansion is a patient safety decision first and foremost,” Dr. Shereef Elnahal, VA under secretary for health, told members of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee on Thursday. “It is important to emphasize that VA is taking these steps with our primary mission in mind: to preserve the lives and health of veterans.””

What this tells me is that while the VA would prefer not to perform abortions, they recognize correctly that sometimes abortion is necessary and that denial of access to it can threaten women’s lives.

Was the move illegal? No. That’s a conservative talking point.

“VA officials and legal experts say the agency is is on solid legal footing as it institutes the new policy, particularly due to the legal principle of federal preemption. “The federal government gets to make law and states can’t say, ‘we don’t want to follow that,’” says David Cohen, a law professor at Drexel University. “So a state that tried to sue to say the VA can’t do this would be contravening that fundamental principle of American law.””

I would also argue that since the core mission of the VA is to – in their own words – preserve the lives and health of veterans, that this decision aligns with their mission.

Tucker then tries to justify his argument by going back to what services the VA provided in 1917 as their “core”, before women were allowed to even serve. (Women didn’t get regular permanent status in the Armed Forces until 1948, under Truman.) Women have served in limited capacities since the Civil War, and it wasn’t until World War I that they allowed women to serve in non-combat jobs to free up men to fight.

Full contextual analysis of Section 3.11: Department of Veterans Affairs here.

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