A new report from the Department of Justice (DOJ) says the Justice Department under President Joe Biden weaponized the FACE Act against pro-life Americans in several major ways.
These include the Biden DOJ violating Americans’ rights with biased enforcement of the FACE Act, collaborating with pro-abortion groups to track pro-life activists’ First Amendment activity, its prosecutors taking part in inappropriate conduct and comments, its pursuit of more severe charges and significantly harsher sentences for peaceful pro-life defendants than violent pro-abortion defendants, and it seeking to provide funding to pro-abortion groups.
The bombshell report titled, The Biden Administration’s Weaponization of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, was released April 14 by the U.S Department of Justice Office of Legal Policy.
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The Justice Department was tasked with assessing the fundamental prosecutorial decisions under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act following President Donald Trump’s Executive Order 14202 Eradicating Anti-Christian Bias and the U.S. Attorney General Memo Restoring The Integrity and Credibility of The Department of Justice.
Trump had separately pardoned numerous peaceful, pro-life defendants on January 23, 2025 whose cases were the subjects of the report.
Following the pardons and in response to the executive directives the DOJ completed an in-depth review of internal discussions, case files, and prosecutorial decisions, concluding that the Biden DOJ weaponized the FACE Act in the above listed ways.
The FACE Act is a “viewpoint neutral law,” according to the DOJ, that protects access to religious institutions and certain healthcare facilities - including abortion centers and pregnancy centers, according to the DOJ, “regardless of whether the views or services align with an administration’s policy preferences regarding abortion.”
Established in 1994, the Act “prohibits the use or threat of force and physical obstruction that injures, intimidates, or interferes with a person seeking to obtain or provide reproductive health services or to exercise the First Amendment right of religious freedom at a place of religious worship. It also prohibits intentional property damage of a facility providing reproductive health services or a place of religious worship. FACE authorizes the Attorney General to seek injunctive relief, statutory or compensatory damages, and civil penalties against individuals who engage in conduct that violates the Act.”
The Biden Administration’s Weaponization of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act comes years after pro-life and pregnancy help advocates first called for the federal government to address its unequal application under the Biden Administration – which is cited in detail in the new DOJ report – and years after the months of violent pro-abortion blowback against pregnancy help and pro-life organizations and houses of worship in the wake of the 2022 release of the U.S. Supreme Court Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling overturning Roe v. Wade.
Heartbeat International, the largest network of pregnancy help organizations in the both the U.S. and globally, was a party named in the report as being among the Biden Justice Department’s “limited” “interactions with pro-life groups.”
The Department of Justice had pledged to Heartbeat International in December 2023 that it would enforce the FACE Act impartially and that its enforcement would include offenses against pregnancy help centers.
For months following Dobbs, abortion supporters targeted pregnancy help organizations, pro-life groups, and churches with vandalism and violence, including firebombing, protests, and online disparagement. Pro-abortion elected officials also publicly disparaged pregnancy centers with false and inflammatory rhetoric, at times working to target them via legislation.
The Catholic Vote Violence Tracker on Pregnancy Centers and Pro-Life Groups, last updated as of press time on January 21, 2025, totaled at least 96 pregnancy centers and pro-life groups attacked and vandalized since the draft Supreme Court opinion overturning Roe v. Wade was leaked in early May 2022. Catholic Vote’s Tracker of Attacks on U.S. Catholic Churches logs 392 attacks on Catholic churches since the Dobbs leak.
“In total, during the four years under President Biden, DOJ charged “more than 45 [pro-life] defendants in over 20 cases” with violating the FACE Act in connection with pro-life demonstrations,” the report found. “This was a significant increase in FACE Act prosecutions compared to prior administrations.”
Additionally, the Biden DOJ’s Civil Rights Division Special Litigation Section “also brought numerous civil FACE Act cases against many of these same pro-life Christians,” the report said. “The Special Litigation Section did not bring any civil FACE Act cases in response to protests or destruction at pregnancy centers or houses of worship during the Biden administration.”
“At the same time,” the report said, “the Biden DOJ largely ignored attacks on pro-life pregnancy resource centers, only charging five people for vandalism and attacks against these healthcare facilities.”
Heartbeat International representatives welcomed the April 14 DOJ report finally officially denoting the biased application of FACE Act prosecution by the prior administration.
"Every day is a battle against Big Abortion,” said Heartbeat International President Jor-El Godsey.
“This report shows how big Big Abortion actually is with power players embedded in the DOJ looking to do the handiwork for abortion profiteers,” Godsey said. “Women deserve justice from the Department of Justice, not ideological politics masquerading as law enforcement.”
Heartbeat International Associate General Counsel Abbey Bongiorno echoed Godsey’s thoughts.
“The blatant discriminatory nature of the application of the FACE Act was apparent during the Biden DOJ,” Bongiorno said. “I am pleased to see the Department of Justice use this report to address what we could see happening and shine a light on how deep the rot had gone.”
“It is essential that our government works to uphold the Constitution and protect its people, not punish those whose viewpoints counter its own,” she added.
One section of the report titled, The Biden DOJ Largely Ignored Pro-Life Groups While Closely Coordinating with Pro-Abortion Groups, detailed how the Biden DOJ was committed to protecting abortion access under the FACE Act, the Biden DOJ sought and relied on information from abortion NGOs, including ongoing monitoring of pro-life Americans, the DOJ provided the National Abortion Federation (NAF) internal department information and coordinated with the NAF on pro-abortion outreach and civil FACE Act litigation, and the Biden DOJ helped abortion NGOs obtain third-party grants.
The Biden DOJ’s Inappropriate Prosecutorial Conduct and Biden DOJ’s Charging and Sentencing Disparities sections detailed myriad instances of unacceptable conduct on the part of the Biden DOJ toward pro-life defendants, their religious beliefs, Catholic judges, and defense counsel.
In one case, the Biden DOJ claimed to defense counsel it did not keep information requested for a selective prosecution defense, despite giving materially identical information to the NAF. In another case, the Biden DOJ allowed abortion NGOs to drive charging decisions and engaged in blatant anti-Christian bias in the jury pool. In a third, the Biden DOJ used aggressive arrest tactics against a pro-life defendant (Mark Houck) who was subsequently acquitted.
“The Biden DOJ’s actions were wrong,” the Trump DOJ concluded in the report. “The Trump Administration and Department of Justice are committed to rectifying these harms.”
The report then detailed steps taken to restore the public’s confidence in the DOJ and to address the Biden DOJ’s unequal application of the FACE Act.
Tweet This: The Biden DOJ’s actions were wrong. The Trump Administration and Department of Justice are committed to rectifying these harms.
Pro-life defendants how received full and unconditional pardons in January 2025 were: Lauren Handy, Jonathan Darnel, Paula Harlow, Jean Marshall, John Hinshaw, Heather Idoni, William Goodman, Joan Bell, Herb Geraghty, Chester Gallagher, Calvin Zastrow, Coleman Boyd, Paul Vaughn, Dennis Green, Eva Edl, Eva Zastrow, James Zastrow, Paul Place, Joel Curry, Justin Phillips, Bevelyn Beatty Williams, and Fr. Christopher Moscinski.
Among the pledges made by the DOJ going forward was that it “will pursue meritorious cases under the FACE Act, when the facts and law support civil or criminal action, including obstruction and threats toward pregnancy resource centers and houses of worship.”
“Kudos to this administration for calling out the weaponization of a powerful federal agency against grassroots efforts desiring only to help women avoid the physical and emotional perils of abortion,” Godsey said. “Peaceful, pro-life citizens, whether in pregnancy centers or on sidewalks, should never fear their own government. Every woman deserves love and compassion during her pregnancy, not a politically powered abortion lobby."
Editor's note: Heartbeat International manages Pregnancy Help News.
