Abortion

Reproductive rights in the US are in tatters -- and Project 2025 will make things worse.

Read a full transcript of the comic

ABORTION

PAGE ONE

Panel 1

A rally for reproductive rights. Women in partial silhouette and abstracted colors hold signs that read “My Body My Choice,” “We Will Not Go Back,” “Keep Abortion Safe & Legal,” “Reproductive Rights are Human Rights,” and “Never Again.” The “Never Again” sign has an image of a coat hanger in a red circle with a red line slashed through, like a no smoking sign.

CAPTION: The landmark abortion decision Roe v. Wade has been dismantled by the Trump-appointed Supreme Court and reproductive rights in the United States are in tatters.

 

Panel 2

The signs from panel 1 are now on fire.

CAPTION: However, if Trump is re-elected and enacts Project 2025, shit’s about to get downright dystopian.

 

Panel 3

An array of states, color-coded by their current anti-abortion laws. The colors are as follows:

Pink: Abortion is banned.

Yellow: No exception for lethal fetal anomalies.

Orange: No exceptions for rape or incest.

Bright red: No exception for the health of the pregnant person.

Dark red: Complete ban, no exceptions.

 

Wyoming, Utah, Nebraska, Indiana, Iowa, West Virginia, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Florida are pink. Arizona, Missouri, and North Dakota are yellow. Louisiana, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Alabama are orange and yellow. Ohio is orange. Wisconsin is orange and bright red. Idaho and Mississippi are yellow and bright red. Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and South Dakota are dark red.

 

CAPTION: There are already 23 states – almost half of the country – that either have total abortion bans or 6, 8 or 15 week bans in place.* On top of that, 7 of those states have no exceptions for the health of the pregnant person, 12 states have no exceptions for rape or incest, and 13 states have no exception for lethal fetal anomalies.

 

CAPTION: *Arizona, Utah, Wyoming, Iowa, Wisconsin & Ohio’s abortion bans are currently blocked by state courts. This will change of Project 2025 goes through.

 

Panel 4

A woman in partial silhouette, standing in front of a high-rise building, looks down at a home pregnancy test.

CAPTION: Pregnancy in these states can be deadly. Reproductive healthcare is nonexistent, and Project 2025 will make it WORSE.

 

Panel 5

The woman walks past a building, looking worriedly behind her. Behind the glass doors of the high-rise we see the silhouettes of onlookers.

CAPTION: Hospitals will no longer be willing to perform emergency abortions, even to save the life of the mother. [Project 2025, page 473]

CAPTION: Funding for abortion travel will be prohibited under the Hyde Amendment. [page 471]

 

Panel 6

The woman is now behind prison bars.

CAPTION: Since the end of Roe v. Wade, more than 200 women have been jailed for having miscarriages that are suspected of being abortions or for “fetal abuse.”


CAPTION: This number will only grow under Project 2025.

 

 

PAGE TWO

Panel 1

The Project 2025 book flies open and begins to fall apart, spreading its pages across a map of the United States that stretches through panels 2 and 3. It casts the shadow of a reaching arm and hand across the map. On the first falling page, we see an excerpt about government agencies encouraging “heterosexual marriage and procreation” and “biblically based” science.

CAPTION: Under Project 2025, being in a blue state doesn’t guarantee your rights.

 

Panel 2

The sprawling pages visible here include one that calls Mifepristone “a controlled dangerous substance” to be banned, and another that notes that “HHS will be known as the Department of Life and explicitly reject the notion that abortion is healthcare.”

CAPTION: “Fetal Personhood” will become federal law via the new “Department of Life.” [page 489]

CAPTION: In Vitro Fertilization (which depends on frozen embryos) will be banned in the entire country. [page 450]

 

Panel 3

One page visible here repeats the note about the Mifepristone ban, and another notes “Every state will report exactly how many abortions take place within its borders, at what gestational age of the child, for what reason, the mother’s state of residence, and by what method.”

CAPTION: The medication Mifepristone, a life-saving drug used to stop deadly postpartum hemorrhages that’s also used in chemical abortions, will be banned. [pages 458-459]

 

Panel 4

Blue and white pills dissolve into a gray background on the left side of the panel. On the right side of the panel, we see a repeat of the page with an excerpt about reporting abortions, and under that page we see a series of green ID tags with women’s photos, logging their abortions. At the top of the panel, we see a partial excerpt of an addition to the U.S. Code that bans the distribution of abortion pills through the mail.

CAPTION: Your mail will be monitored;

CAPTION: Project 2025’s resurrection of the 1873 Comstock Act will ban mail-order abortion pills and “any article or thing designed or intended for…procuring an abortion” up to and including certain kinds of contraception. [page 459]

CAPTION: You’ll lose medical privacy. All states, even ones where abortion is still allowed, will be required to submit detailed information about pregnancies, abortions and miscarriages to a federal database. [page 455]

 

Panel 5

A trail of women in black clothing march along a bloody path to a graveyard.

CAPTION: US maternal death rates are already the highest in the “first world,” especially among women of color. With Project 2025 destroying reproductive rights, these deaths will skyrocket.

 

Panel 6

White space between panels.

CAPTION: Project 2025 ensures women will no longer be autonomous beings.

CAPTION: If you get pregnant under Project 2025, you will be forced to give birth.

CAPTION: Even if it kills you.

 

Panel 7

At the top of the panel we see an embryo in a petri dish, which a ruler measuring it as about half an inch big. Below the petri dish, we see the stylized image of a teenage girl.

CAPTION: This [arrow pointing to the embryo] will have more rights than this [teenage girl].

CAPTION [under embryo]: This is a representation of tissue removed at six weeks, when “fetal heartbeat” bills outlaw abortion.

CAPTION [next to girl]: This is a representation of a teenage girl, who will have no bodily autonomy.

CAPTION: You can do something about this. You can save lives. You can save women’s rights. You can vote.