Opinion: Ignore Project 2025 at your own risk

Shanay Watson-Whittaker, Michigan Director for Reproductive Freedom for All, warns that a second Trump term could threaten Michigan’s abortion rights despite recent state protections.

After Michiganders voted overwhelmingly to enshrine abortion rights into our state constitution, a majority of Michigan voters now say they believe abortion is now a settled issue in our state. I wish that were true.

The reality is that all the work Michigan voters and our state legislature have put in to expand and protect access to essential reproductive health care, including abortion, could be undone if Donald Trump and JD Vance win the White House in November. Donald Trump has said he is “proudly” the person responsible for overturning Roe v. Wade, and his Buckeye running mate JD Vance has been one of the loudest supporters in the Senate of banning abortion nationwide—and he even argued a national ban was necessary to prevent people from crossing state lines for care. 

If given the keys to the White House in November, Donald Trump and JD Vance won’t waste any time working to enact their plan to rip away our freedoms. If you haven’t heard of Project 2025 already, it’s a detailed, 920-page takeover agenda for a second Trump term—put together by Trump’s closest allies and former staffers. 

And Michiganders need to pay attention to Project 2025, especially when it comes to abortion rights—because anyone who thinks Michiganders’ reproductive freedoms would be unaffected by a second Trump term is fooling themselves. 

Here are just a few of the ways Donald Trump’s detailed second-term agenda would override our state protections here in Michigan:

• Revoke the FDA’s approval of mifepristone, a safe and effective medication used for miscarriage care and medication abortion;
• Wilfully misinterpret and misuse the antiquated Comstock Act to criminalize access to abortion pills and medical equipment used for abortion care, effectively banning abortion in all 50 states;
• Implement a national surveillance regime that would require all states to track people’s pregnancy outcomes, including abortions, stillbirths, and miscarriages.
• Allow employers to refuse birth control coverage.

That’s just the beginning. If Trump gets elected and implements these policies, they would make abortion effectively impossible for people to access everywhere in America, including here in Michigan.

There are less than 100 days until the election and all eyes are on our state. Every vote here matters; it’s difficult for either candidate to get 270 electoral votes without winning Michigan. 

November will mark the first presidential election since Trump’s Supreme Court justices overturned Roe v. Wade. Right now, 28 million women are living under abortion bans —and their stories are harrowing: people denied miscarriage care, forced to drive hundreds of miles under duress, turned away from hospitals until their condition has deteriorated so much that they risk serious complications or death.

The situation is dire. But Vice President Kamala Harris has led the Biden-Harris administration’s efforts to do everything possible to mitigate the harm Trump caused—whether that’s fighting in the courts to defend access to abortion medication and lifesaving emergency abortion care, strengthening access to contraception, or signing executive orders to protect reproductive health care access. And Vice President Harris has been clear that she will sign legislation codifying the federal right to abortion into law if she wins in November and Democrats win control of Congress. 

In just one term, Trump managed to end Roe and plunge our nation into an abortion access crisis. It was one of the few promises he actually kept as president. 

A second Trump term would make abortion effectively impossible to access anywhere in our country. Anyone who chooses to write off Project 2025 does so at their own risk.

Related: Fact-checking Trump’s lies on abortion during the presidential debate