EXPLAINER
Kamala Harris often claims that a Trump administration would interfere with pregnancies. But is that really true?
By
Published On 5 Nov 2024
On multiple occasions in her closing pitch to voters, Vice President Kamala Harris said her opponent, former President Donald Trump, would intrude on women’s pregnancies.
As she denounced Trump’s record on reproductive rights, she said on October 29 that he would “force states to monitor women’s pregnancies”. She urged listeners to “Google Project 2025 and read the plans for yourself”, referring to a conservative policy blueprint assembled by some of Trump’s supporters.
Harris repeated the line the following night at a rally in Madison, Wisconsin.
Harris’s statement echoed a similar one by her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, who said that Project 2025 would require women to “register with a new federal agency when you get pregnant”.
The Harris campaign again pointed to Project 2025 when asked for evidence of Harris’s claim.
Project 2025 is a policy blueprint for the next Republican administration developed by Trump’s allies, including The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, and at least 140 people who worked in the Trump administration. It is not a Trump campaign document.
Project 2025 does not call on states or the federal government to monitor pregnancies from the moment they are discovered. The plan would call for more comprehensive monitoring of pregnancies that end in foetal death, such as abortions, miscarriages and stillbirths, than the US government currently requires.
The manual proposes stronger state-based abortion data as part of its broader push to refashion the Health and Human Services Department into a “Department of Life”.
Project 2025 proposes the federal government withhold money from states that do not report more detailed abortion data to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The document calls for the Health and Human Services Department to “use every available tool, including the cutting of funds”, to ensure states report the following:
- The number of abortions within their borders.
- The weeks of gestation the abortion took place.
- The reason for the abortion.
- The pregnant woman’s state of residence.
- The method of the abortion.
It says these statistics should be separated by category, including spontaneous miscarriage, treatments that incidentally result in foetal death (such as chemotherapy), stillbirths and induced abortion.
Currently, states are not required to submit abortion data to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but the majority do, except for California, Maryland and New Hampshire. To collect individual state data, most state vital statistics agencies have designed a form that abortion providers use for reporting.
Harris’s statements in recent days have become less specific and even less accurate than in her speech at the Democratic National Convention. Then, she said Trump “plans to create a national anti-abortion coordinator and force states to report on women’s miscarriages and abortions”. That is not true.
Trump has distanced himself from Project 2025 in recent months, and he has not called for monitoring pregnancy outcomes or pregnancies broadly.
When Trump was asked in April whether states should monitor or punish women who have illegal abortions, Trump said some states “might” choose to do that but maintained that it was up to them.
Our ruling
Harris said Trump would “force states to monitor women’s pregnancies”.
The claim is wrong on two counts. Trump has not proposed forcing states to monitor pregnancies. It is also not an accurate depiction of a Project 2025 policy proposal.
Project 2025 recommends the federal government require states to report complete data on pregnancies that end in foetal death and to use federal funding as leverage to ensure compliance.
This data would reflect certain pregnancy outcomes, including abortions, miscarriages and stillbirths. It would not involve the government tracking the progress of all pregnancies from start to finish.
The statement is inaccurate. We rate it false.
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