After spending a lot of time on Project 2025, I started thinking about how things might play out, particularly when it comes to abortion.

I also looked at our past behavior because it typically predicts future behavior. I believe the anti-abortion “movement” has a hidden agenda, a darker, twisted purpose. It aligns with the white supremacy and patriarchy that fuels their fevered dream of an obedient, complacent citizenry that has given its collective power to the white men in leadership.

What I’m going to suggest is really messed up. I do not believe most people would agree with this, but they will vote for Trump and Project 2025 and then look up in disbelief when this manifests right before our eyes. Why do I think this is possible? Because Stephen Miller is still pulling the strings. Trump likes Miller. Here we go.

Imagine a Venn diagram where a circle that contains forced births overlaps with a circle of people who favor slavery. In this scenario, forced births become a pipeline to child trafficking. Here’s what needs to exist for this to happen:

1. Women are forced to give birth without their consent.
2. Children are born to men and women who don’t want them.
3. Unwanted children are put up for adoption. White children are adopted; children of color are deemed “less valuable,” consistent with the rhetoric being used today by Trump and Vance.
4. Less valuable children become a government burden. But they can’t be part of the welfare state; the government is not responsible for them.
5. Adoption agencies are corporation-owned businesses like prisons and healthcare. Under Project 2025, everything is privatized, and oversight is removed.
6. Less valuable children are monetized based on their age. Babies and small children are used as house slaves, er um, domestic help (“just like the poor countries they come from, they were born for this purpose”). As the kids get older, they become more valuable, and states like Arkansas are working to lower the working age of children to help accelerate monetization.
7. There is no oversight, management, or paper trail. We are a nation of haves and have-nots, and the children raised in this scenario will live a life of obedience and conformity as outlined in the Project 2025 Mandate.

How Could this Happen? First, they killed Roe v. Wade.

The Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2022 overturned Roe v. Wade, stripping away federal protections for abortion rights. This landmark ruling gave states the power to impose their own restrictions, and nearly 30 states have either passed or proposed laws that severely limit or outright ban abortion.

These laws force women to carry pregnancies to term, often regardless of their circumstances—whether financial, medical, or personal. The burden falls hardest on low-income women, women of color, and those living in rural areas, where access to healthcare is already limited. With few legal options for terminating pregnancies, we now live in a landscape increasingly described as “forced birth.”

Second, they wrote Project 2025.

Project 2025, driven by a conservative agenda, seeks to restructure the federal government by reducing the reach of federal oversight and devolving power back to the states. This includes impacting social services and regulatory bodies, crucial in protecting vulnerable populations, especially children. The project emphasizes conservative ideals like local control and traditional family structures, but it raises several significant concerns:

1. Weakening Oversight and Regulation: Project 2025 advocates for reducing federal oversight, which could weaken protections for children in adoption and foster care systems. State systems vary in quality, and without strong federal standards, some states might lack the resources or will to enforce robust child welfare protections, increasing the risk of trafficking or exploitation in underregulated systems.
2. Privatization and Outsourcing: The push toward privatization could mean that private agencies, driven by profit motives and less transparent than public systems, may become less accountable. Without stringent safeguards, children in these systems could be at higher risk of exploitation and trafficking, as private agencies may prioritize efficiency or profits over the children’s well-being.
3. Marginalized Communities at Greater Risk: Reducing protections disproportionately harms marginalized communities, especially non-white children, who are already overrepresented in foster care and adoption systems. Historical patterns of exploitation suggest that these children could face even greater vulnerability if guardrails are removed.
4. Emphasis on Traditional Family Structures: Project 2025 places significant value on “traditional families,” which could inadvertently pressure vulnerable women, particularly those from low-income or marginalized backgrounds, into carrying pregnancies to term. Without adequate support, many may turn to underregulated adoption systems, further straining those systems and putting children at risk.

In summary, if Project 2025 strips away essential guardrails—such as oversight of adoption and foster care—children, particularly from marginalized groups, could face an increased risk of trafficking and exploitation. Weakening regulatory frameworks combined with privatization could create a dangerous environment for these vulnerable populations.

Third, it’s nearly happened in the United States before.

Elements of this troubling scenario have appeared throughout U.S. history, albeit in different forms. Vulnerable children have been exploited in the past when oversight was weak, and similar patterns of abuse could resurface.

Exploitation and Abuse in Adoption and Foster Care

• The Orphan Train Movement (1854-1929) relocated around 250,000 children from urban areas to rural families. While some children found stable homes, many were exploited as cheap labor, and there was little oversight to ensure their welfare. The lack of regulation led to widespread abuse, making this an early example of children being placed at risk due to inadequate oversight.

• Georgia Tann and the Tennessee Children’s Home Society (1924-1950): Georgia Tann trafficked children under the guise of running an adoption agency. She exploited poor and non-white children, selling them to wealthy families without proper legal processes. Her operation revealed how vulnerable children could be when adoption systems lack proper oversight and transparency.

Human Trafficking

• Foster Care and Trafficking: Today, children in the U.S. foster care system are still at elevated risk of being trafficked. The National Foster Youth Institute reports that nearly 60% of child sex trafficking victims have spent time in foster care. The instability and lack of oversight in the foster care system create vulnerabilities that traffickers exploit.

• Labor Trafficking in Agriculture: Both historically and in modern times, marginalized communities, including children, have been trafficked for labor in agricultural settings. Weak labor protections in certain states make it easier for this exploitation to occur, especially among undocumented and impoverished workers.

Government-Backed Displacement of Marginalized Communities

• Native American Boarding Schools (1870s-1960s): Native American children were forcibly removed from their families and placed in government-run or religious boarding schools, where they suffered abuse, forced labor, and cultural erasure. These schools operated with little oversight, allowing for widespread exploitation.

• The Forced Sterilization Movement: In the early 20th century, tens of thousands of women—many of them poor, disabled, or women of color—were forcibly sterilized under eugenics programs. These programs, backed by state governments, targeted vulnerable communities and demonstrated the dangers of inadequate protections for marginalized groups.

Exploitation of Black Children Under Slavery and Jim Crow. During slavery and the Jim Crow era, Black children were routinely exploited for labor. Even after slavery ended, systems like convict leasing and sharecropping kept many Black families in a cycle of poverty and exploitation. Legal systems during this time offered little protection for Black children, creating a legacy of vulnerability that persists in some forms today.

The Adoption of Indigenous Children (1950s-1970s). During this period, large numbers of Native American children were removed from their homes and placed with non-Native families, often without proper legal process or oversight. This practice, known as the Indian Adoption Project, was intended to assimilate Native children but often led to cultural erasure and abuse. It wasn’t until the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 that protections were put in place to prevent further exploitation.

These historical examples illustrate how vulnerable populations, especially children, have been exploited when regulatory systems fail. If Project 2025 reduces or removes these protections, similar patterns of abuse and trafficking could re-emerge.

Fourth, and most importantly, Trump and Miller did it before.

The Trump administration’s border policies provide a more recent example of how weakened protections can place children at risk. Under the “zero-tolerance” family separation policy of 2018, thousands of children were forcibly separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border.

1. Family Separation Policy (2018): Children were placed in detention centers with inadequate oversight and care, leading to reports of overcrowding, unsanitary conditions, and severe psychological trauma. Many children were too young to understand the separation, and some parents were deported without their children, leaving them stranded in the system.
2. Poor Conditions in Detention Centers: Reports highlighted poor conditions in the detention centers, where children were held for extended periods. They lacked basic necessities, such as clean clothes and hygiene products, and suffered from neglect, illness, and psychological trauma. The lack of oversight and transparency raised fears of trafficking and exploitation.
3. Human Trafficking Vulnerability: Separated and unaccompanied children were at high risk of being trafficked. Poor tracking systems and insufficient protections left them vulnerable to exploitation both within the detention centers and once released into foster care or with sponsors.
4. Long-Term Psychological Impact on Children: Studies and expert testimonies revealed that the trauma inflicted on these children would have long-term effects on their mental health and development. The chaos, separation, and detention created emotional scars that would persist for years.

These border policies highlight how easily children, particularly those from vulnerable populations, can be exploited when protections are weakened or dismantled. The parallels between these policies and the potential risks of Project 2025 are stark and troubling.

Vote like our children’s lives matter

Of all Trump’s recent lies, his attempted dissociation with Project 2025 may be the most important—because he’s trying to convince the American people that the choice between dictatorship and democracy that they face is not before them at all. – Slate

History has shown us time and again that when oversight is weakened, the most vulnerable—particularly children from marginalized communities—are the first to suffer. Policies that dismantle protections in the name of political or ideological agendas risk repeating the darkest chapters of our past.

The Dobbs decision and the ambitions of Project 2025 may set the stage for a future where our children, especially those who already face systemic inequities, are at even greater risk of exploitation. It is up to each of us to defend democracy and fight for a system that protects all children, regardless of their race, background, or socioeconomic status.

We must vote, advocate, and raise our voices to ensure that no child is left behind in a system that values profit or ideology over their welfare. Now more than ever, our collective action is needed to safeguard the future for all our children and preserve the values of justice and equality that underpin our democracy.