“Can you imagine being thrown in jail for peacefully protesting the deaths of babies in the womb?” writes Jamie Dangers, SBA Pro-Life America’s director of federal affairs, in The Daily Signal.
President Bill Clinton signed the FACE Act into law over 30 years ago. Supposedly, it was enacted to protect abortion facilities, places of worship, and pregnancy centers from threats, violence, and vandalism.
Thirty years later, however, the FACE Act has become little more than a tool for the Biden-Harris administration’s FBI and Justice Department to employ against political enemies—specifically pro-life advocates.
The Biden-Harris administration may be on the way out, but peaceful pro-life activists are still spending Christmas in prison for the crime of standing for life. True justice matters – and President Trump has indicated his openness to pardoning them.
This afternoon, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government will hold a hearing titled “Revisiting the Implications of the FACE Act: Part II.” The purpose of the hearing is to “examine the Biden-Harris Department of Justice’s unequal application of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act.”
Watch the live stream and follow @sbaprolife on X for coverage:
As the subcommittee chairman, Roy says he will be “leading the discussion on the Biden administration’s weaponization of the FACE Act against everyday Americans.” Roy has been vocal in demanding an accounting and calling for the FACE Act to be repealed. Here, he grills FBI Director Christopher Wray about the outrageous raid on pro-life father Mark Houck’s home. Wray – who is resigning seven years into a 10-year term ahead of the incoming Trump administration – admitted that, since Dobbs, “probably in the neighborhood of 70% of our abortion-related violence cases…are cases of violence or threats against pro-life—where the victims are pro-life organizations.”
In stark contrast to how the Biden-Harris administration has weaponized the heavy hand of federal might against pro-life Americans, the DOJ has chosen to ignore evidence of barbaric partial-birth abortions – a federal crime – in the case of the D.C. Five babies. In her op-ed, Dangers continues:
In March 2022, members of the group Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising, or PAAU, discovered the tortured remains of five fully formed babies now known as “the D.C. Five.” Their bodies and wounds indicated they likely were victims of illegal partial-birth or born-alive abortions.
Lauren Handy and other PAAU activists notified the authorities of the bodies found at the Washington Surgi-Clinic in Northwest D.C. and called for an investigation into the likely federal crimes that led to their deaths. Instead, the FBI arrested Handy for a protest she had engaged in a year before.
Handy ultimately was sentenced to 57 months in federal prison and three years of probation for her nonviolent violation of the FACE Act.
In a recent op-ed in the Washington Examiner, fellow PAAU activist Terrisa Bukovinac highlighted an appalling injustice: While Handy sits behind bars, Washington Surgi-Clinic abortionist Cesare Santangelo and other pro-abortion radicals remain untouched…
Pro-life advocates named the five aborted babies to give them dignity: Ángel, Christopher X, Harriet, Holly, and Phoenix. These five children would be toddlers right now, playing and exploring the world around them. Instead, their bodies remain in a morgue awaiting justice that the Biden-Harris administration denied.
Despite repeated requests from members of Congress and the public, no autopsies or investigations have occurred.
Rep. Roy is making sure that the cause of the D.C. Five, and the horror of abortion generally, does not fade from the public eye.
Paul Vaughn: Mark Houck is not the only pro-life father to have the FBI show up to his home, guns in hand, in front of his terrified children – Paul Vaughn of Tennessee also knows that experience well. Peter Breen of the Thomas More Society gives an excellent explanation not only of the way Vaughn was treated despite his complete nonviolence (and yes, as the date of the interview indicates, his fight has gone on for more than two years), but also of how the Biden-Harris administration has sought “enhanced” sentencing to turn a six-month misdemeanor charge into the potential for up to 11 years in prison.
Steve Crampton (Thomas More Society): Crampton is senior counsel at the Thomas More Society, a national public interest law firm, and defended Vaughn. In an interview with The Federalist, he explains how Vaughn – who is serving house arrest – is not allowed to vote and had to get permission from a probation officer even to be able to testify at the hearing.
“It is a wonderful thing that he was not given jail time; no doubt that was a huge win…Nonetheless, as a convicted felon under house arrest, followed by three years of supervised release, which entails his having to get permission from his probation officer to visit even a daughter or daughter-in-law giving birth in the hospital, to go and visit the newborn grandchild, to go visit a family for holidays, and in this case, to go and do his civic duty and testify before Congress. He is at the mercy of his probation officer and the government. I mean, it’s preposterous.”
Erin Hawley (Alliance Defending Freedom): Erin Hawley is well known as senior counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom, including for work on the Dobbs case, which she calls “the project of a lifetime.” On Lauren Handy’s sentencing, she wrote, “The reality is that the FACE Act has been weaponized to target political opponents of abortion with federal prosecution and hefty sentences while pregnancy care center vandals go free.”
Democratic members of the subcommittee, such as Ranking Member Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon and Rep. Veronica Escobar, have dismissed inconvenient facts like Wray’s testimony as “misinformation” and characterized Republicans as “hell-bent on making sure that women do not have access to reproductive health care and cannot make decisions about their own future,” which is odd, because if anyone has extreme difficulty making decisions about their own future it’s prisoners in jail.
The Biden Administration signs the death warrant for thousands of unborn babies every day because of its commitment to the extreme Big Abortion agenda. Help us deliver a life-saving message: TELL JOE NO and that you want a pro-life America.
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