The scandal-plagued Lincoln Project has billed itself as a group of mainstream Republicans who oppose the reelection of Donald Trump.

But their recent advertisement shows them to be nothing more than leftist scaremongers.

The monitoring, prosecution, and jailing of women for exercising their own bodily autonomy - this will be our reality if Trump wins and enacts his Project 2025 agenda. pic.twitter.com/7SZux0jUk6

— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) August 27, 2024

Their ad depicts a police officer pulling over a father and his daughter and, instead of writing the father a ticket for a traffic violation, pulls up the daughter's medical history to discover that she is eight weeks pregnant. He also somehow searches the car's GPS system to discover that the destination is an out-of-state women's health service that performs abortion services. He then arrests the father for transporting his daughter across state lines to get an abortion, and the daughter for seeking to "evade motherhood."

Although some states have apparently tried to criminalize out of state travel to obtain an abortion, (emphasis is mine), "This [Idaho] law prevents people from helping minors who are not their children get abortions – without parental consent – including in another state." I don't find this particularly objectionable because parents are responsible for their children's medical care.

Also note that the father could not be arrested even under this law for driving his daughter to an abortion clinic because there is obviously parental consent.

In addition, "Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in the 2022 Dobbs decision that states cannot legally prevent their residents from going to another state to get an abortion, because he believes there is a 'constitutional right to interstate travel.'"

Kavanaugh, a Trump appointee, cannot be accused of being a pro-abortion leftist. He is interpreting the Constitution as it is written, and nowhere in the Constitution is there any right for a state to tell its residents where they can travel. The federal government can restrict travel and interstate commerce, e.g., the Mann Act prohibits interstate prostitution, and you cannot buy or sell a firearm across state lines without going through a FFL registered dealer. There is no federal law that bans interstate travel to get an abortion, nor is there likely to be one in the foreseeable future.

The Department of Justice adds, "The Department’s statement of interest explains that the right to travel from one state to another is firmly embedded in the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence and the Constitution. It notes that Justice Kavanaugh — one of the five justices who formed the majority in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization — has explained that the question of whether a State may 'bar a resident of that State from traveling to another State to obtain an abortion' is 'not especially difficult' — 'the answer is no based on the constitutional right to interstate travel.'"

Project 2025 Does Not Create a "Pregnancy Registry"

Not only does the Lincoln Project appear to misrepresent the actual authority of states to prevent out-of-state travel to obtain abortion services, a related canard suggests plans to force pregnant women to register with the government.

Factcheck.org reports, "Claims that Project 2025 'would establish a ‘national abortion monitor’' are '[f]alse,' Severino said in the post. The plan 'merely recommends CDC restore the decades-long practice of compiling anonymous abortion statistics for all states,' he wrote, adding that the Harris-Walz campaign claims were 'hypocritical' and 'misleading' since Minnesota already collects such data."

The MOMS (More Opportunities for Moms to Succeed) Act is apparently another source of confusion about a federal pregnancy registry.

FactCheck.org reports, emphasis is mine, "Republican Sen. Katie Britt has introduced a bill that would create a government website to help connect pregnant people with resources, excluding abortion services. Some Democrats and partisan websites have misleadingly claimed the proposed law would create a federal database of pregnant people. The bill doesn’t require users to provide any personal information."

With the exception of direction to abortion services, the MOMS Act looks like it could have come straight from Democrats!

It says: "This clearinghouse would increase access to adoption agencies, pregnancy resource centers, and other relevant public and private resources available to pregnant women within their zip code and surrounding areas," and "establish a grant program for non-profit entities to support, encourage, and assist women in carrying their pregnancies to term; and to care for their babies after birth," as well as "provide tools for pre-natal and post-natal telehealth appointments by instituting a grant program to purchase necessary medical equipment and technology in rural areas and other medically underserved areas."

To this is added enforcement of child support obligations. Does anybody in either political party have a problem with the actual content of this legislation?

The bottom line is that nobody is creating a registry to track pregnant women, and the courts — including at least one of the conservative Supreme Court Justices — have said that states cannot prohibit women from going out of state to access abortion services. Regardless of whether one is pro-life or pro-choice, voters are entitled to accurate information prior to the election.

Civis Americanus is the pen name of an American Thinker contributor who remembers the lessons of history, and wants to ensure that our country never needs to learn those lessons again the hard way.

Image: Logo, via Wikimedia Commons // fair use