How Project 2025 uses executive authority to shape women’s rights

Project 2025 is a long-term policy blueprint created by a group of conservative organizations and led by the Heritage Foundation, a Washington-based think tank. Released ahead of the 2024 presidential election cycle, it outlines how a future administration aligned with its priorities could approach governing. The document is publicly available and reflects recommendations from its authors; it is not a binding government document and has not been formally adopted as federal policy.

Rather than proposing new legislation, Project 2025 focuses on how executive authority could shape the federal government’s day-to-day operations. It centers on areas that can change without Congress passing new laws — including agency rulemaking, enforcement priorities, regulatory interpretation, leadership appointments, and funding decisions. In other words, it addresses how existing laws would be carried out in practice.

For women and girls, that distinction matters. Many rights are shaped less by what the law says on paper and more by how it is implemented. Federal agencies play a central role in determining whether health care is accessible, whether discrimination complaints move forward, and whether protections are enforced consistently. When implementation shifts, people can feel the effects even if the underlying law remains the same.

What follows highlights a few areas where Project 2025’s recommendations are especially relevant to women and girls. These examples are not meant to capture everything in the plan, but to illustrate how its proposals could affect everyday experience.

Reproductive health and bodily autonomy

Project 2025 approaches abortion primarily as a regulatory and enforcement issue, rather than as part of health care delivery. Instead of focusing on new legislation, the plan looks to existing federal authority as a way to limit abortion-related care, including medication abortion, even in states where abortion remains legal.

In practical terms, Project 2025 supports steps such as:

Expanding federal oversight and data collection related to abortion, including expanding mandatory state reporting requirements and using federal funding mechanisms to encourage compliance.
Using federal health care funding rules, including Medicaid policy, in ways that could restrict support for providers or states that seek to protect or expand abortion access.
Reinterpreting existing federal laws and regulations—including those related to medication approval and distribution—in ways that could sharply limit medication abortion and increase legal risk for providers.

Taken together, these approaches wouldn’t require Congress to pass a nationwide ban. Instead, they could make abortion care harder to provide and harder to access. For patients, that can mean fewer providers, longer delays, and wide differences in care depending on where someone lives and how much legal risk a provider is willing to take.

Federal agencies and enforcement of women’s rights

Many protections women rely on exist because federal agencies actively enforce them. Project 2025 proposes narrowing that role by changing how agencies operate and what they prioritize.

The plan calls for shifts like:

Pulling back on proactive federal enforcement, placing more responsibility on individuals to initiate and pursue complaints themselves.
Narrowing how discrimination protections are interpreted, including protections related to pregnancy, caregiving, and sex-based harm.
Reducing or restructuring offices within federal agencies that are responsible for civil rights enforcement.

When enforcement slows or narrows, rights don’t disappear—but they become harder to use. For women who can’t afford private legal representation or long legal processes, these changes make protections feel out of reach, even when they still technically exist.

Education policy and student protections

Project 2025 also calls for a more limited interpretation of sex discrimination in education. It recommends rolling back guidance that broadens how existing laws are applied in schools.

In practice, this would mean:

Less federal involvement in how schools handle discrimination and harassment complaints.
Lower expectations that schools act proactively to prevent gender-based harm.
More responsibility shifted to state and local systems, where enforcement and responses can vary widely.

These changes wouldn’t rewrite education law, but they could shape how schools respond when issues arise. For girls and young women, that can affect whether concerns are taken seriously and whether school environments feel safe and supportive.

Family policy and caregiving

Project 2025 promotes a family policy framework that places greater emphasis on marriage and parental authority, while reducing the role of federal support programs. Caregiving is treated primarily as a private family responsibility rather than a shared public concern.

In practice, the plan supports shifts such as:

Prioritizing marriage-based family structures in federal policy design and benefits, rather than broader caregiving arrangements.
Scaling back or limiting the role of federal social support programs related to childcare, family assistance, and caregiving.
Emphasizing parental control over public systems, including education and child-related services, as a guiding policy principle.

Because women continue to carry most unpaid caregiving work, these choices can land unevenly. Changes in family policy can affect access to childcare support, family leave, and economic stability—especially for women balancing caregiving with paid work.

Why this matters

Project 2025 doesn’t change the law on its own. What it does is outline how executive power could be used to shape how laws are interpreted, enforced, and experienced.

For women and girls, rights are shaped by access, consistency, and follow-through. Understanding Project 2025 helps explain how policy agendas can affect daily life without new legislation—and why implementation often matters just as much as what’s written into law.