Clemency is warranted for pro-life activists convicted under the FACE Act

President Biden recently commuted the sentences of 1,500 Americans and pardoned 39 more — the largest act of clemency in a single day in American history. He also pardoned his son, Hunter, whom Biden claims was unfairly targeted by the Department of Justice.

Yet the real victims of the Justice Department’s injustice are peaceful pro-life activists prosecuted under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act.

A recent hearing by the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Constitution and Limited Government sought to address the Biden administration’s abuse of the FACE Act and highlighted the contrast between the Justice Department’s treatment of peaceful pro-life advocates and violent abortion rights extremists.

The FACE Act is a Clinton-era law that makes it a federal crime to “use force, the threat of force or physical obstruction to prevent individuals from obtaining or providing reproductive health care services.” That covers abortion clinics, but also includes pregnancy resource centers and places of worship. Violations of the FACE Act carry hefty punishments of up to 11 years in jail and up to $250,000 in fines. 

In theory, the law should be an even-handed protection for both sides of the abortion issue. But in practice, the Justice Department has used the FACE Act as a cudgel to force peaceful pro-life advocates into submission — and prison.   

One victim of the Biden administration’s FACE Act persecution whose story was highlighted at the hearing is an 89-year-old woman named Eva Edl, who survived a communist concentration camp in her native Yugoslavia only to be prosecuted and convicted of a felony for praying inside an abortion clinic. She is not among the beneficiaries of Biden’s pardon spree. 

Among the other casualties of the Justice Department’s extreme political prosecutions was Mark Houck, a father who was charged under the FACE Act for shoving a pro-choice counter-protester who was accosting Houck’s son. Houck was acquitted in a criminal trial. His case was further proof that these prosecutions were merely attempts to silence and threaten political opponents of the Biden administration.  

The hearing also highlighted the aggressive and unconstitutional persecution of Paul Vaughn, a father of 11 who was arrested at his home at gunpoint by an FBI SWAT team. His only “crime”? Praying outside an abortion clinic. “I did not nothing outside constitutionally protected free speech and freedom,” Vaughn testified at the hearing.

Meanwhile, attacks against pregnancy resource centers and churches have been willfully ignored by the Biden administration. Since the second Catholic president took office, over 400 Catholic churches in the U.S. have been attacked in some way: ransacked, desecrated, graffitied with death threats, invaded during Mass and in some cases even burned to the ground. Out of over 400 attacks, the Biden Justice Department has prosecuted only one.

The story has been largely the same when it comes to the nearly 100 acts of violence and vandalism against pro-life pregnancy resource centers since the draft Dobbs ruling overturning Roe v. Wade leaked in May 2022. Across the country, these charities — which run on small budgets to help women in need who don’t want abortion — were victimized by domestic extremists.

FBI Director Christopher Wray revealed in a congressional hearing that 70 percent of abortion-related violence in the aftermath of the Dobbs decision was directed against pro-life organizations, and said his agency took the violence very seriously. Despite those assurances, the number of attacks on pregnancy centers that have been federally prosecuted can be counted on one hand. 

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Tex.) has repeatedly pointed out that the FACE Act is redundant and should be repealed. There are identical laws in all 50 states, and the FACE Act has simply become a weapon for the federal government to go after political opponents. Catholics and pro-lifers hope that the committee hearing will spur the next administration to repeal, or at least defund, the FACE Act. If a repeal is not politically feasible, Congress should demand the new Trump administration at least enforce the law to provide equal protection to pregnancy resource centers and churches.

At the House hearing earlier this week, Roy also called on Trump to pardon peaceful pro-lifers convicted under the FACE Act.

In the absence of Biden’s action, the hearing on the FACE Act demonstrated the grave miscarriages of justice and the need for the new administration and the next Congress to protect peaceful pro-life victims from the politically weaponized Justice Department.

For starters, there’s an 89-year-old death camp survivor who deserves clemency. 

Tommy Valentine is the director of the Catholic Accountability Project at CatholicVote.

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