President Trump on Thursday pardoned 23 pro-life activists who had been sentenced under the FACE Act by the Biden administration for protesting at abortion facilities and whom supporters said were unfairly targeted for their beliefs. Some of the activists had been imprisoned.
Trump, in a signing ceremony at the White House, told reporters the activists “should not have been prosecuted.”
“This is a great honor to sign this,” he added.
The Biden Department of Justice charged the activists under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE), a law signed by President Bill Clinton in 1994 that imposes significant fines and prison sentences on individuals who obstruct access to abortion clinics.
The language of the Act indicates that it applies to pro-life pregnancy help centers and churches as well, something confirmed to Heartbeat International by the Department of Justice. However, the overwhelming majority of prosecutions under the FACE Act have been peaceful pro-life demonstrators.
Heartbeat International is the largest network of pregnancy help organizations in the U.S. and globally. Some of Heartbeat’s affiliates have been among the many pregnancy help organizations targeted for vandalism and violence by pro-abortion zealots following the leak of the Dobbs ruling overturning Roe v. Wade. Pro-life advocates have continued in calling for equal application of the FACE Act related to the pro-abortion attacks on pregnancy centers.
Heartbeat leadership welcomed the pardons for the pro-life advocates.
“When pro-lifers are unfairly targeted, and punished excessively, for their peaceful protests, then presidential pardons are a must," Heartbeat President Jor-El Godsey said. "We are grateful for President Trump’s effort to right the wrongs of the activist Biden administration."
Tweet This: When pro-lifers are unfairly targeted, and punished excessively, for their peaceful protests, then presidential pardons are a must.
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The Thomas More Society was one of the pro-life groups that had urged Trump to pardon the pro-life individuals, asserting in a Jan. 14 letter to the soon-to-be president that the convictions were unjust. The legal non-profit has been representing some of the pro-life advocates targeted by the Biden administration and formally petitioned Trump to pardon 21 of the pro-life advocates.
“These peaceful pro-life Americans mistreated by Biden include grandparents, pastors, a Holocaust survivor, and a Catholic priest -- all are selfless, sincere patriots,” the letter said.
“While Biden’s prosecutors almost entirely ignored the firebombing and vandalism of hundreds of pro-life churches and pregnancy centers, they viciously pursued pro-life Americans,” it said.
Steve Crampton, senior counsel of the Thomas More Society Senior Counsel, thanked Trump for his action in issuing the pardon.
“Today, freedom rings in our great nation,” Crampton said in a statement Thursday. “The heroic peaceful pro-lifers unjustly imprisoned by Biden’s Justice Department will now be freed and able to return home to their families, eat a family meal, and enjoy the freedom that should have never been taken from them in the first place.”
“These heroic peaceful pro-lifers were treated shamefully by Biden’s DOJ, with many of them branded felons and losing many rights that we take for granted as American citizens,” Crampton added. “Today, their precious freedom is restored. What happened to them can never be erased, but today’s pardons are a huge step towards restoring justice. Thank you to President Trump and his team for righting these grievous wrongs of the previous administration.”
Another pro-life legal non-profit, Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), praised the pardons as well.
“The Biden administration politicized and abused the FACE Act to target and discriminate against peaceful pro-life advocates,” said Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Erin Hawley, vice president of the ADF Center for Life and Regulatory Practice.
“While they received harsh prison sentences, vandals who violently attacked pro-life pregnancy centers got off scot-free,” Hawley said. “Now, President Trump has rightly restored equal protection of the law by pardoning the peaceful pro-life advocates, including Eva Edl, an 89-year-old Soviet concentration camp survivor who sat in her wheelchair at the entrance to an abortion facility. Eva faced a sentence of up to 11 years in federal prison along with hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines just for singing and praying from her wheelchair.”
“The president’s pardon is a crucial first step in returning the Department of Justice to the rule of law,” added Hawley. “Under the prior administration, the FACE Act was wrongly weaponized to target pro-life activity while leaving pregnancy centers and churches unprotected. This was lawfare, not the even-handed application of law the American people deserve.”
ADF’s statement on the pardons included specifics of the imbalance in enforcement of the Biden administration on the part of the Biden administration:
In 2022, the U.S. Department of Justice brought federal criminal charges against at least 26 pro-life individuals under the FACE Act but issued no charges against those who obstructed or vandalized pregnancy care centers that year. Despite the nearly 400 cases of vandalism and arson against pregnancy care centers and churches since Roe v. Wade was overturned, Biden’s DOJ charged only a handful of individuals.
Trump had pledged during his campaign to take action on behalf of the pro-life activists.
“Today is a new day for the pardoned pro-life advocates who have suffered FBI raids, federal prosecutions, and severe punishment for peacefully and courageously witnessing for life,” Thomas More Society Executive Vice President and Head of Litigation Peter Breen said. “We thank President Trump for keeping his promise to these pro-life mothers, fathers, grandparents, pastors, and priests. What happened to these peaceful pro-life individuals must never happen again.”
The Thomas More Society and other pro-life groups and individuals are asking the new Congress to repeal the FACE Act.
“We urge Congress to act swiftly in repealing the FACE Act to make sure that the Justice Department can never again weaponize this law to target peaceful pro-lifers with severe charges,” Breen said.
Watch video of President Trump signing the pardons in the Oval Office HERE.
Editor's note: Heartbeat International manages Pregnancy Help News.
