(The Daily Signal) The forthcoming Trump-Vance administration has the opportunity to protect pro-life pregnancy resource centers that have been targeted, ignored, and undermined by the Biden-Harris Justice Department.
“President Trump, more than almost anyone, understands what it’s like to have the entire weight of the federal law and investigatory power of the federal law against him,” said Chelsey Youman of Human Coalition, which supports pregnancy help centers. “The pro-life movement feels that weight, that burden, as well.”
At least 95 pregnancy resource centers and pro-life groups have been attacked and vandalized since the Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade was leaked in early May 2022, according to CatholicVote’s tracker. The DOJ has not investigated the majority of the attacks.
“If you look just at the year 2022, there were over 100 attacks, many of them violent, against pregnancy care centers, and there was not a single prosecution under [the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act of 1994] for those sorts of harms to pregnancy centers in that year,” Alliance Defending Freedom lawyer Erin Hawley told The Daily Signal. “There have been a handful since, but those pale in comparison to the dozens of prosecutions against pro-life individuals who have protested peacefully at abortion centers around the country.”
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Pro-life lawyers and directors of pregnancy resource centers weighed in on how the Trump administration can protect them after four years of what they regard as mistreatment under the Biden-Harris administration.
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Investigate attacks ignored by Biden’s DOJ
President-elect Donald Trump’s Department of Justice can bring the hammer of justice down on vandals and domestic terrorists who have threatened and vandalized pregnancy centers, yet faced no repercussions.
CompassCare Pregnancy Services’ Buffalo, New York, center was firebombed on June 7, 2022. Though pro-abortion organization Jane’s Revenge claimed responsibility, the DOJ did not bring charges against the domestic terrorists, according to CompassCare CEO and President James Harden.
President Joe Biden’s DOJ is “not actually interested in enforcing the law equally, if in fact the crimes are being committed against people who hold different political views than the current administration,” Harden told The Daily Signal.
The DOJ did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment.
Alternatives Pregnancy Center in Sacramento, California, has been attacked and threatened with violence, but the FBI did not follow up on Executive Director Heidi Matzke’s police report, Matzke said. Though Matzke has a video of a man standing outside the center with a machete, the Biden-Harris DOJ did not investigate the lead, she said.
“Our pregnancy center spent $150,000 to basically bulletproof the outside of our clinic,” Matzke told The Daily Signal. “We increased security measures. We had to arm all of our staff with pepper spray. We had to stop operations of our mobile clinic due to just the violence that we’ve seen on a national level.”
“We give away free medical care to women in unplanned pregnancies,” Matzke continued, “and yet it’s crazy that we have to take such drastic measures.”
According to CompassCare’s Harden, Attorney General Merrick Garland, Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke, and FBI Director Christopher Wray are “vehemently” opposed to pregnancy resource centers.
“Why is the attorney general, who is responsible for enforcing the law duly enacted by the legislature, refusing to do his job?” Harden asked. “That’s not to mention the fact that he’s allowing that department to be weaponized against citizens.”
Trump’s attorney general should support pregnancy help centers in litigation they are facing and support initiatives in Congress that help fund them, said Thomas Glessner, founder and president of the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates, a public interest law firm that defends pro-life pregnancy centers.
On Wednesday, Trump announced his selection of now-former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., as his nominee for attorney general. (Shortly thereafter, Gaetz resigned from Congress.)
“Our biggest fear in this election was, if [Kamala Harris] was elected, she would appoint an attorney general, possibly [Xavier] Becerra, and that attorney general would declare war on pregnancy centers across the country,” Glessner told The Daily Signal.
The Left’s abortion agenda is so extreme that the Biden-Harris DOJ is unwilling to protect American citizens who disagree with them on abortion, said Youman, the national director of public policy for Human Coalition.
“We know that they’re willing to throw pro-lifers in jail for even praying or worshipping outside of an abortion clinic,” Youman said. “Of course, they’re not going to lift a finger to protect the same pro-life constituents from attack.”
The Trump DOJ must fire and investigate career DOJ employees who have discriminated against pregnancy resource centers, Harden said.
“We’ve got to take a look at the leadership, as well as the rank-and-file at the DOJ and the FBI,” Harden said. “We need to sequester funds until an external, objective investigation can be done into the weaponization of federal law enforcement.”
Trump’s U.S. attorneys and FBI appointees will be important in securing protections for pregnancy help centers, Youman said.
“If President Trump wants to protect all Americans, he’s going to do what he’s promised,” Youman said. “We know he’s promised to clean shop, and that’s going to be at those lower-level appointment positions as well.”
“There’s 2,700 pregnancy resource centers across our country,” Youman continued. “We outnumber abortion clinics 4 to 1, and what that means is, the next administration has the opportunity to make America the most hopeful, resourced, and compassionate place for pregnant women seeking abortion, and he has four years to do it.”
End Biden’s marginalization of pregnancy centers
“The Biden administration has systematically done what they can to marginalize pregnancy resource centers in a few ways,” Youman explained.
But Trump can repeal Biden administration orders that discriminate against pro-lifers and ensure that federal funding doesn’t go to organizations that provide abortion referrals, according to Youman and Hawley.
The Biden Department of Health and Human Services proposed a rule change in December 2023 to make pregnancy help centers ineligible for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families funds.
The rule change, which has not been finalized, would prohibit states from sending federal funds earmarked to prevent out-of-wedlock pregnancies to pregnancy help centers.
The Biden administration argued that pregnancy resource centers should not be eligible for TANF funds because the centers help women after they become pregnant, instead of focusing on pregnancy prevention.
“On Day One in office, President Trump has the opportunity to repeal and revoke every single one of those unconstitutional religious discrimination orders, and make sure that pregnancy resource centers are protected under the law,” Youman said. “But more importantly, that women are able to be served, because the ones who are hurt from this type of discrimination are the women.”
The Trump administration also can revert to its prior rules on Title X, Hawley said. Title X is a federal program that focuses on providing family planning and related preventative services to low-income Americans at little or no cost to them.
In 2019, the Trump administration issued regulations disqualifying abortion clinics and organizations that provide abortion referrals from receiving Title X funding. On Oct. 4, 2021, the Biden administration changed Title X again to allow funding for abortion and birth control.
Trump can roll back the Biden rule on Day One to “make sure the funds provided by Congress go to sources that help women and children, rather than harming them,” Hawley said.
“Title X funds health care centers around the country, but the text of that statute clearly says that those federal funds shall not be used in a center where abortion is a method of family planning, so you can’t provide abortions with federal money under Title X,” Hawley said. “The Trump administration can also put in place the rule that you cannot refer for abortions using that money. That’s a crucial protection.”
Revise or repeal FACE Act, pardon pro-lifers
Trump can repeal or reevaluate the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act of 1994, which has been weaponized against pro-lifers over the past four years.
The Trump administration could commit to enforcing the FACE Act evenly and making sure that pregnancy resource centers are protected from violence. Alternatively, Congress could repeal the law.
Trump should also pardon, or commute the sentences of, the pro-lifers who have been convicted for praying outside abortion clinics, Glessner said.
More than 10 pro-lifers have been convicted under the FACE Act for peacefully protesting outside abortion clinics during the Biden-Harris administration. One of these pro-life activists is 89-year-old Eva Edl, who survived a World War II-era death camp before escaping to the United States.
“We know that these are peaceful, believing Americans, Americans who believe in the right to life, and for that simple belief, they’re thrown in prison,” Youman said. “Our hearts go out to them. Some of them are facing four-and-a-half [or] five years in federal prison for peacefully assembling and exercising their free speech and assembly rights, their First Amendment rights.”
The charges against the pro-life activists were brought by the Biden administration; specifically, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division led by Clarke.
The FACE Act prohibits use of force, obstruction, or property damage intended to interfere with “reproductive health care services.” Though it theoretically protects houses of worship and pro-life pregnancy resource centers as well as abortion clinics, the Biden administration’s Justice Department has largely used the FACE Act to prosecute pro-life activists like Edl.
“We’d like to see maybe a repeal or reevaluation of the FACE Act at the federal level, so that it cannot be weaponized against these pro-lifers,” Youman said.
Editor's note: This article was published by The Daily Signal and is reprinted with permission.
