In first 100 days, Trump’s moves on abortion echoed Project 2025 playbook 

Although President Donald Trump said he would leave the issue of abortion to the states, he used much of the first 100 days of his second term to curtail reproductive rights in the nation and abroad.

Many of the actions Trump has taken over the last three months have aligned with the objectives contained in Project 2025, the right-wing blueprint for the next Republican presidency produced in 2024 under the auspices of the Heritage Foundation. Trump had claimed not to know anything about the document as he ran for president last year.

A community-based spreadsheet called Project 2025 Tracker, created by two users of the social media platform Reddit, tracks the Trump administration’s efforts to put into place the blueprint’s 312 objectives. 

As of April 28, according to the tracker, 97 of those objectives had been achieved, 29 of which focus on reproductive health and the right to abortion. 

Here are just a few of the actions the administration has taken that deprive Americans and many people around the globe of access to abortion and reproductive health care during Trump’s first three months in office. 

Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) 

In March, the U.S. Department of Justice notified defendants in United States of America v. The State of Idaho, a lawsuit it had filed under President Joe Biden over Idaho abortion law, that it was dropping the suit. Idaho law bans abortion with few exceptions; that law conflicts with the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, or EMTALA, which requires hospitals that receive funding under Medicare to stabilize emergent patients, including those requiring an abortion. Advocates say the action shows that the Trump administration will not fight to protect pregnant and birthing people, even in cases of medical emergencies. 

“The Trump administration has made clear they would let women die rather than get an abortion,” Deirdre Schifeling, chief political and advocacy officer of the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement. “In dropping the case, the administration sanctions preventing doctors from providing emergency medical care to patients that is necessary to save their lives and health.” 

Project 2025 calls for a reversal of “distorted pro-abortion ‘interpretations’ added to the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act,” and claims,  “EMTALA requires no abortions, preempts no pro-life state laws, and explicitly requires stabilization of the unborn child.” (pp. 473-474).

After the U.S. Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade in 2022, the Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid issued a memo in which it said, “If a physician believes that a pregnant patient presenting at an emergency department is experiencing an emergency medical condition as defined by EMTALA, and that abortion is the stabilizing treatment necessary to resolve that condition, the physician must provide that treatment.” 

The Hyde Amendment and Title X

Just four days after taking office, Trump issued an executive order to enforce the Hyde Amendment, a restriction on the use of federal funds for abortion. 

The statute has prohibited the use of federal funding to pay for abortions since 1976, except in medical emergencies in which a pregnant woman’s life is at stake. 

Trump also revoked executive orders that Biden had signed in July 2022 and August 2022 after the reversal of Roe. Biden’s orders were intended to protect access to medication abortion and patient privacy, and ensure the affordability of contraception.

Planned Parenthood, the nonprofit organization that provides reproductive health care services across the country, receives funding under Title X, a federal program that funds reproductive health care for lower-income patients who are unable to pay. Title X funds cannot be used to pay for abortions. Despite this fact, Planned Parenthood has been attacked by anti-abortion activists who claim that its clinics do use federal money to pay for abortion care. 

At the end of March, at least nine Planned Parenthood affiliates received notices that the Trump administration planned to withhold Title X funding as of April 1. 

Project 2025 says: “Policymakers should end taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood and all other abortion providers and redirect funding to health centers that provide real health care for women. … Congress should pass the Protecting Life and Taxpayers Act, which would accomplish the goal of defunding abortion providers such as Planned Parenthood”(pp. 471-472).

The Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act 

In January, just three days after taking office, Trump pardoned 23 anti-abortion activists who had been convicted on charges of blocking abortion clinic entrances in Washington, D.C., Tennessee, Michigan, and New York City. 

On Jan. 24, the Justice Department issued a memo promising to end the “weaponization of the federal government” against those who protest against abortion. 

The Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act is a law that, as described by a memo posted to the Justice Department’s website (last updated in May 2023 but still available as of April 30, 2025), “prohibits threats of force, obstruction and property damage intended to interfere with reproductive health care services), or other federal criminal statutes where arson, firearms, and threats were also used. The FACE Act is not about abortions.”

“To address this concern and to ensure that federal law enforcement and prosecutorial resources are devoted to the most serious violations of federal law, future abortion-related FACE Act prosecutions and civil actions will be permitted only in extraordinary circumstances, or in cases presenting significant aggravating factors, such as death, serious bodily harm, or serious property damage,” the memo reads. 

In April, the National Abortion Federation released its Violence and Disruption Report with data from 2023 and 2024. The report says the data shows “sustained and consistent violence and harassment targeting abortion providers, even as clinics have closed and restrictions make it hard to access abortion care in many regions.” 

There were 296 reported death threats and threats of harm, 777 cases of obstruction to clinics, 621 cases of trespassing, and 128,570 incidents of picketing in the country, according to the report. 

Project 2025 calls the FACE Act a “controversial law” and accuses the Department of Justice of using it “to harass pro-life demonstrators while not pursuing similar investigations of shocking acts of violence committed against pro-life pregnancy resource centers.” It says, “DOJ has needlessly undermined its credibility with law-abiding people of faith” (p. 558).

Takes down federal website on reproductive health care

On Jan. 20, the federal government website reproductiverights.gov, which had provided vital public information about reproductive health care, went dark.

The site, which was launched in 2022, offered information about abortion medications, a list of states where abortion was banned or restricted, a list of clinics that provide breast and cervical cancer screenings and prenatal and pregnancy care, and a section on abortion rights. 

USAID on the chopping block

The U.S. Agency for International Development has been gutted by the Trump administration, and all of the family planning grants provided through the agency have been terminated.  

USAID was established in 1961. The agency ran one of the world’s largest global food and humanitarian aid programs. The family planning arm of USAID supplied everything from contraception to maternal and infant health and sexual education to millions of women and girls worldwide. Without access to contraceptive care, 4.2 million women and girls could experience unwanted pregnancies, and maternal deaths could exceed 8,000, according to Guttmacher. 

Project 2025 falsely claims, “USAID now aggressively promotes abortion on demand under the guise of ‘sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights,’ ‘gender equality,’ and ‘women’s empowerment’ and advocates for those who claim minority status or vulnerability” (p. 259).

The blueprint says that USAID ”must be reformed,” adding,“The Biden Administration has deformed the agency by treating it as a global platform to pursue overseas a divisive political and cultural agenda that promotes abortion, climate extremism, gender radicalism, and interventions against perceived systematic racism” (p. 90).