HOW WEIRD

Project 2025 Head’s New Book Rails Against IVF, Abortion and... Dog Parks?

Kevin Roberts claims the government promotes “antifamily culture” in the new book, which was reviewed by Media Matters on Thursday.

Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts, the mastermind behind the widely publicized Project 2025, rails against in vitro fertilization (IVF), abortion, contraceptives, childless adults, and even dog parks in his upcoming book, according to a new report.

He touts the long list of bogeymen as examples of “antifamily culture” promoted by the U.S. government in the book, titled Dawn’s Early Light: Taking Back Washington To Save America, according to excerpts published by liberal watchdog group Media Matters for America.

In particular, Roberts takes aim at IVF—the fertilization procedure that has proven largely popular among Americans, according to data published by the Pew Research Center.

“In vitro fertilization (IVF) seems to assist fertility but has the added effect of incentivizing women to delay trying to start a family, often leading to added problems when the time comes,” Roberts writes.

Earlier this year, a controversial Alabama Supreme Court decision found that frozen embryos counted as children—forcing hospitals in the southern state to effectively shut down the practice for fear of prosecution should the embryos be damaged.

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The public backlash against the Alabama high court’s decision was so rapid, and so harsh it forced the state’s Republican-dominated legislature to quickly pass a law to protect the treatments and shield healthcare providers from being sued or prosecuted for providing such treatments.

Former President Donald Trump also quickly came out against the decision, and his staff circulated a memo encouraging Republican legislators to support improving access to IVF.

According to the leaked excerpts, Roberts considers IVF a “contraceptive technology,” which he defines as one of the “revolutionary inventions that shape American culture away from abundance, marriage, and family.” He blames these factors for rising abortion rates.

The number of abortions in the U.S. actually began falling in the 1990s, reaching a low point in 2017. Abortion rates have since sharply risen, according to data collected by the Guttmacher Institute. This is especially true after the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization Supreme Court decision reversed Roe v. Wade and allowed states to pass abortion bans.

Although Trump has since tried to distance himself from Project 2025, his vice presidential pick, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), wrote the foreword for Roberts’ book.

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After praising Roberts’ writing as “profound,” Vance called for conservatives to adopt his ideas in the future.

“We are now all realizing that it’s time to circle the wagons and load the muskets,” Vance wrote. “In the fights that lay ahead, these ideas are an essential weapon.”

Vance also came under fire last week for past comments describing Democratic voters as “childless cat ladies”—a bizarre theme Roberts echoed in his book by taking aim at a different species of pet: dogs.

In another excerpt from the book highlighted by Media Matters, Roberts decries the Swampoodle Dog Park and Playground, a small green space in D.C.’s NoMa neighborhood, for allegedly prioritizing space for dogs over playground equipment for children. He claims the dog park is an example of “the antifamily culture shaping legislation, regulation, and enforcement throughout our sprawling government.”