Noah McDonald0:00 The administration's agenda, heavily influenced by Project 2025 playbook, is to eliminate abortion access nationwide, based on the premise that abortion is not health care.0:09 Rather than pursuing a politically difficult legislative ban, the strategy is to use executive and administrative power to achieve a de facto national ban.0:16 The primary lines of attack are the central federal targeting medication abortion.0:21 The central federal strategy is to ban and criminalize medication abortion, which is now accounts for nearly two thirds of all abortions in the U.S.0:28 This is being pursued by pressuring the FDA to reverse its decades-old approval of MIFA prestatone, and most significantly by reviving the Comstock Act of 1873.0:38 This 150-year-old anti-obscenity law could be reinterpreted by the Department of Justice to criminalize the mailing of abortion pills and any related materials.0:46 Because nearly all medical supplies are sent through the mail at some point, this stealth ban could be used to not only halt medication abortion but procedural abortions as well, without passing a single new law.0:56 Also, weaponizing conscience laws.0:59 Project 2025 calls for a dramatic expansion of conscience laws, which would allow nearly any healthcare worker from surgeons to receptionists to deny care based on personal beliefs.1:09 These laws would be also used as a cudgel to define deny federal funding to states that have moved to protect abortion access.
Leeza Kurtz0:00 My question is why has this recently become such a big issue and concern for politicians when before you know, say 10 years ago, it seemed to be going in the opposite direction where more progressive agendas were being passed over time and abortion was becoming more accessible, and then in recent years it's started to become you know, kind of the opposite swing of the pendulum.0:33 You know, we saw it when Roe v.0:35 Wade got overturned, and it's just interesting, and it's an interesting thought.0:41 Like, why is this suddenly becoming prevalent?0:43 Is it for political power or because you know, I think at the end of the day, we all know that Donald Trump and other people that he works closely with aren't like these super religious, passionate people who just really care about um you know the Bible or whatever the Bible has to say about on the topic, and that's a whole other matter because you know, if they are using religious ideals to support their statements, then obviously that's not okay because separation of church and state, but obviously there are a bunch of scientists and there's a bunch of research that points that gives evidence for both sides.1:33 Um you know, it just remains a matter of who gets to decide in these situations and what what is the reason?1:44 Is it money?1:46 Is it that maybe these larger organizations with money and power who really care about it are paying these politicians more, and that's why it's becoming more prevalent?1:57 Or do we think the politicians are doing it to increase support from Christians?2:06 I don't know.2:07 It's an interesting thought.