A satirical post falsely claims Project 2025 recommends tracking people's menstrual cycles with ‘passports.’ Here’s what it actually says about reproductive rights.
Project 2025 is an initiative launched in April 2022 by The Heritage Foundation to provide a roadmap for the next conservative president to transform the government in favor of conservative social policies and ideals.
The VERIFY team has been fact-checking viral claims about Project 2025. We can confirm the plan doesn’t propose eliminating Social Security benefits. We also answered questions about how the Heritage Foundation receives its funding.
Recent social media posts, like this X and this TikTok post, claim Project 2025 recommends that women be required to carry so-called “period passports” that would track their menstrual cycles. The posts also allege Project 2025 says police can randomly stop women to check their “passport” in an effort to “monitor” pregnancies.
THE QUESTION
Does Project 2025 recommend women be required to carry “period passports”?
THE SOURCES
- “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise,” published by the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank behind Project 2025
- July 6 X post from satirical account The Halfway Post
THE ANSWER
No, Project 2025 doesn’t recommend women be required to carry “period passports.”
WHAT WE FOUND
“Mandate for Leadership: A Conservative Promise," which outlines the plan for Project 2025, doesn’t say anything about requiring women to carry “period passports” nor does it reference anything about menstrual tracking. The claims stem from a satirical X post.
VERIFY found the claim first appeared on a satirical X account called The Halfway Post on July 6. The satirical account's post is nearly identical to other viral versions of this claim and is the earliest version of the post VERIFY found.
“BREAKING: The Project 25 group says women should be mandated to carry ’period passports’ that track their menstrual cycles and must be kept up to date, and women must present these to police officers during random ID checks to monitor pregnancies,” the satirical post says.
The Halfway Post’s account bio says the account is “Dada news. Halfway true comedy and satire … I don’t report the facts, I improve them.”
A blog post linked from the X page also says the author is a “political satirist.”
While those claims are false, Project 2025 authors do recommend limiting access to birth control by allowing more employers to opt out of covering it through their insurance plans, among other proposals. The initiative also recommends establishing federal policies that would restrict access to abortion and eliminate federal funding to healthcare providers who perform abortions, limiting access to Plan B, and prohibiting pharmacies from distributing abortion medication.
According to an analysis by the Center for American Progress (CAP), a left-leaning think tank, if Project 2025 were enacted, nearly 48 million women of reproductive age would lose guaranteed, no-cost access to emergency contraception.
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