Project 2055, Mandate for Leadership, The Conservative Promise, is wide ranging plan to immediately implement conservative religious principles throughout the federal bureaucracy upon the election of a conservative U.S. President. Chapter 14, authored by Roger Severino, lays out recommendations to overhaul the Department of Health and Human Services. The focus is on banning any abortion options for women and erasing any mention of LGBTQ people.
Plans to Reform HHS to Ban Abortion and Erase LGBTQ People
The chapter on remaking the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is 48 pages in length, excluding end notes. The author, Roger Severino, worked for HHS between 2017 to 2021 and served as the Director of the Office of Civil Rights. Severino has an insider view of the HHS bureaucracy that manages such agencies as the Centers for Disease Control, Medicare, Medicaid, along with setting rules for the Affordable Care Act and numerous other programs related to public health.
The HHS chapter is written with knowledge of how bureaucracies work and how subtle changes, guided by political and religious perspectives, can radically disrupt and alter the course of benefits and protections for Americans. From reading through the entire text, it is apparent Severino wants to ban abortion and has a deep animus toward the LGBTQ community. Severino also seems to be driven by lingering anger over the COVID-19 pandemic and Anthony Fauci, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
The mission of the Department of Health and Human Services is to identify and address issues regarding public health and health care. Serevino gives no attention on how his suggestions would address serious public health concerns facing Americans. You would think that Serevino would float ideas to improve public health. However, the only threat he sees is a woman’s health care choice of abortion.
To illustrate how weighted Serevino’s Project 2025 overhaul recommendations are toward his goal of banning abortion, below are the number of references to certain words in the text of the chapter, including end notes.
- Abortion 142
- COVID 46
- Marriage 29
- Pregnancy 14
- Aborted 10
- Gender Identity 10
- Vaccines 9
- Health Insurance 8
- Fauci 7
- Contraceptive 7
- LGBTQ 3
- Virus 2
- Transgender 2
Below are some public health threats and the number of references within the text, including end notes.
- Alcohol 1
- Asthma 0
- Beer 1
- Cancer 1
- Fentanyl 1
- Guns 0
- Heart Attack 0
- Liquor 1
- Opioid 1
- Tobacco 0
Many of our communities are torn apart by alcohol, opioids, and gun violence. Serevino chooses not to focus on addressing any of those major public health threats. Instead, like a preacher pounding his fist on the pulpit, the root of all evil is abortion. He places abortion in the category of a disease.
Text excerpts from Project 2025 Chapter 14
The best way to illustrate Serevino’s plans to ban abortion and erase LGBTQ people is to quote directly from the text he authored. His first target is getting more data on abortions to push through draconian policies.
“The CDC’s [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] abortion surveillance and maternity mortality reporting systems are woefully inadequate. CDC abortion data are reported by states on a voluntary basis, and California, Maryland, and New Hampshire do not submit abortion data at all.”
“Because liberal states have now become sanctuaries for abortion tourism, HHS should use every available tool, including the cutting of funds, to ensure that every state reports 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.”
There is no abortion tourism, a term Serevino uses to trivialize the critical health care decision by a woman. Some states have increased abortion procedures, not because women want to visit Disneyland, but because their home state has banned the procedure. It also appears that Serevino is advocating for the expansion of the surveillance state. He wants as much data on women and their health care decisions as possible. It is kind of creepy.
Within the Food and Drug Administration, Serevino finds abortion pills to be horrible. He notes the rates of abortion using abortion pills has increased 150 percent in the past decade. This increase would be in direct relationship to state attacks on clinical surgical abortions.
“[The FDA should] Reverse its approval of chemical abortion drugs because the politicized approval process was illegal from the start.”
“Now that the Supreme Court has acknowledged that the Constitution contains no right to an abortion, the FDA is ethically and legally obliged to revisit and withdraw its initial approval, which was premised on pregnancy being an “illness” and abortion being “therapeutically” elective at treating this “illness.”
It is no surprise that Serevino wants the HHS to intervene and stop all “Mail-Order Abortions,” as he calls them. In other words, he doesn’t want Mifeprex being allowed to be shipped to any woman by either USPS or other interstate carrier.
In terms of health insurance, Serevino wants to prohibit health plans from reimbursing travel expenses for a woman who must visit another state for an abortion.
“Providing funding for abortions increases the number of abortions and violates the conscience and religious freedom rights of Americans who object to subsidizing the taking of life.”
Some of Serevino’s recommendations for the remaking of HHS that should, “….create and promote a research agenda that supports prolife policies,” focuses on bureaucratic rules and rulemaking. He often cites the reversal of Section 1115 waivers, granted by HHS, that allows the states to incorporate certain benefits within health plans. The Section 1115 waivers can also be used to remove reduce coverage and providers.
Defunding Planned Parenthood
A health care provider in the crosshairs of Serevino is Planned Parenthood.
“CMS [Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services] should resolve pending Section 1115 waivers from Idaho, South Carolina, and Tennessee, which, like Texas in January 2022, are seeking both to prohibit abortion providers from participating in state-run Medicaid programs and to work with other states to do the same. Abortion is not health care, and states should be free to devise and implement programs that prioritize qualified providers that are not entangled with the abortion industry.”
Serevino has given much thought on how to shut down any abortion option for women. He is not above suggesting radical and draconian reforms such as wielding the sledgehammer of intimidation.
“Withdraw Medicaid funds for states that require abortion insurance or that discriminate in violation of the Weldon Amendment.”
“The Weldon Amendment declares that no HHS funding may go to a state or local government that discriminates against pro-life health entities or insurers. In blatant violation of this law, seven states require abortion coverage in private health insurance plans, and HHS continues to fund those states.”
The plan design to somehow restrict or ban abortion is included in almost every program of HHS that Serevino writes about.
National Institutes of Health. “Aggressively implement a plan to pursue and fund ethical alternative methods of research in order to ensure that abortion and embryo-destructive related research, cell lines, and other testing methods become both fully obsolete and ethically unthinkable.”
Teen Pregnancy Prevention. “Funds should not go to organizations receiving grant money that promote sex, prostitution, or provide a funnel effect for abortion facilities or school field trips to clinics for similar purposes.”
Office of Refugee Resettlement. “ORR should never be able to facilitate abortions for unaccompanied children in its custody, including crossing state lines from pro-life state to abortion-friendly states.”
Health Resources and Services Administration. “Eliminate the week-after pill from the contraceptive mandate as a potential abortifacient form of contraceptive.” “Ensure that training for medical professionals does not include abortion training.”
Office of Civil Rights. “….ensure that female college athletes who become pregnant are no longer pressured to obtain abortions; pursue race discrimination claims against entities that adopt or impose racially discriminatory policies such as those based on critical race theory; and announce its intention to enforce disability rights laws to protect children born prematurely, children with disabilities, and children born alive after abortions.“
LGBTQ Community Should Not Be Recognized
When reading through the chapter, you notice that Serevino invokes a notion that someone’s objection to abortion is some form of discrimination against them if abortion is permitted. He equates a woman’s decision to have an abortion as an injury to the conscience of someone who opposes abortion. This phantom injury spills over to the recognition of the LGBTQ community.
Under Serevino’s 3rd goal for HHS reform he equates the recognition of the LGBTQ community with undermining his vision of America.
“Unfortunately, family policies and programs under President Biden’s HHS are fraught with agenda items focusing on “LGBTQ+ equity,” subsidizing single-motherhood, disincentivizing work, and penalizing marriage. These policies should be repealed and replaced by policies that support the formation of stable, married, nuclear families.”
Serevino blames HHS anti-family policies on an enlightened bureaucracy.
“Woke Policies
NIH became so focused on the #MeToo movement that it refused to sponsor scientific conferences unless there were a certain number of women panelists, which violates federal civil rights law against sex discrimination.
NIH has been at the forefront of pushing junk gender science.”
Serevino believes acknowledging the variety of human conditions creates special classes of people.
“[HHS policy of] Discrimination on the basis of sex includes, but is not limited to, discrimination on the basis of sex stereotypes; sex characteristics, including intersex traits; pregnancy or related conditions; sexual orientation; and gender identity.” In other words, the department proposes to interpret Section 1557 as if it created special privileges for new classes of people, defined in ways that are highly ideological and unscientific.”
In Serevino’s unscientific logic, he proposes that HHS recognition of gender identity and sexual orientation be erased.
“The redefinition of sex to cover gender identity and sexual orientation and pregnancy to cover abortion should be reversed in all HHS and CMS programs as was done under the Trump Administration.”
Underpinning most of Serevino’s argument against recognition and support of the LGBTQ community is that he believes it is in contradiction to his family values agenda. When it comes to adoption, he believes the 2016 regulation prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity be repealed.
When it comes to parents, Serevino sides with fathers over mothers. He advocates that ‘deadbeat’ dads be able to claim the Child Tax Credit for children they don’t take as dependents. He never explains how this tax credit would its way over to the fatherless children who have not been receiving child support.
However, if a father or mother is intransigent in meeting Serevino’s definition of a good parent, the children should be taken away from the biological parents. This recommendation applies to the HHS program of Administration on Children, Youth, and Families (ACYF.)
“Allocate funding for promoting father involvement. Parents who do not make a sincere or serious effort should have their parental rights swiftly terminated and put children in foster care.”
Serevino does not explain who the judge will be of what a good parent is. Regardless, ripping children away from parents because a government agency does not like the parenting style, is a pretty radical suggestion. Other less than family friendly suggestions from Project 2024 chapter on the HHS is scrapping of the Head Start Program.
“Eliminate the Head Start Program. At the very least the program’s COVID-19 vaccine and mask requirements should be rescinded.”
Anthony Fauci is repeatedly demonized by Serevino for Fauci’s recommendation pertaining to masks and vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Unaccountable bureaucrats like Anthony Fauci should never again have such broad, unchecked power to issue health “guidelines” that will certainly be the basis for federal and state mandates.”
Then Serevino adds his own medical advice concerning contagious diseases.
“The only way to restore public trust in HHS as an institution capable of acting responsibly during a health emergency is through the best of disinfectants—light.”
I assume ‘light’ is a metaphor for transparency because he did not think Fauci was very transparent. But Serevino may also be implying that just sunshine is all we need to contain novel viruses that kill people.
Medicare Reform
When it comes Medicare reform, Serevino seems confused on how Original Medicare works. After recommending more competition between Medicare Advantage and private plans, he states Medicare Advantage health plans should be the default Medicare enrollment. For the record, Medicare Advantage plans are mainly administered by private insurers. He then suggests that Medicare beneficiaries be given direct control of how they spend their Medicare dollars.
Original Medicare provides the highest control on the part of Medicare beneficiaries over how their care is provided. The complaint of Medicare Advantage plans is that they limit the network of providers and deny authorization for some health care services.
The lack of understanding on Serevino’s part on how many of the HHS programs work, or maybe it was his inability to write clearly and convey his familiarity, leads me to discount many of his recommendations. Some of his suggestions had a ring of credibility when it came to conflicts of interest, transparency, and accountability.
Unfortunately, Serevino has demonstrated such an extreme bias and focus on banning abortion, any suggestions to improve operational efficiency at HHS could also be innocuous land mines that would help him ban abortion and erase the LGBTQ community from HHS consideration.
Project 2025 Chp 14 HHS
Project 2025, chapter 14, plans to ban abortion, erase LGBTQ people within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
