The Biden administration has been actively pursuing legal action against anti-abortion activists since the overturn of Roe v. Wade two years ago, but many reported assaults on pregnancy centers and churches have not resulted in prosecution.
In the two years since the leak of the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, pro-life churches, and pregnancy centers have faced vandalism, break-ins, threats, and even firebombing by pro-abortion activists. Despite these attacks, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has prosecuted only a few individuals involved while focusing its efforts on imprisoning pro-lifers who protest at abortion clinics, The Daily Caller reported.
As of March, 90 pregnancy centers and resource groups have experienced vandalism, graffiti, property damage, arson, firebombing, and even assaults on staff members, according to Catholic Vote, which has tracked these incidents since the Dobbs decision. Additionally, 257 Catholic churches have been targeted by pro-abortion activists such as Jane’s Revenge and Ruth Sent Us, groups linked to Antifa and other anarchist organizations. Over 30 of these attacks have occurred in 2024 alone.
Meanwhile, the DOJ has convicted multiple pro-lifers for obstructing access to abortion clinics, violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, which “prohibits threats of force, obstruction, and property damage intended to interfere with reproductive health care services.” On June 3, a federal court sentenced 75-year-old Paulette Harlow to two years in prison for peacefully blocking access to an abortion clinic in 2020. In May, pro-life activist Lauren Handy was sentenced to 57 months in prison for the same protest, with nearly a dozen others still awaiting sentencing, the outlet reported.
The DOJ also invoked the FACE Act to charge Mark Houck, a father accused of assaulting an abortion clinic volunteer during a protest. In October 2022, the FBI raided Houck’s home and arrested him in front of his wife and children. However, in January, Houck was acquitted by a jury.
However, despite the surge in attacks on churches and pregnancy centers two years after the fall of Roe v. Wade, the department has made little effort to prosecute the individuals responsible, the outlet noted further.
As of May 2023, only one out of 34 criminal and civil charges brought under the FACE Act since 2011 involved an attack on a pro-life pregnancy clinic in Florida, according to the DOJ’s latest statistics. The department charged four individuals with intimidation for vandalizing two pregnancy centers, spray painting messages such as “If abortions aren’t safe then neither are you,” and “We’re coming for U.”
“The FACE Act stands for the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, but many don’t know that it also criminalizes intentional damage, destruction, and obstruction of places of worship,” Tommy Valentine, Director of CatholicVote’s Accountability Project, told the DC. “The Biden DOJ has aggressively enforced the law against pro-lifers engaged in peaceful civil disobedience outside abortion clinics, gleefully charging old ladies.
“But there have been over 400 attacks on Catholic churches over the last four years and there has not been a single federal prosecution. And they have prosecuted fewer than 10 people in the 90 attacks on pregnancy resource centers since the leak of the Dobbs decision two years ago,” he said.
Kristi Hamrick, vice president of Media and Policy for Students for Life of America, added: “To put pro-life people in prison because of their viewpoint, that’s a whole different level. They’re not prosecuting the crime, they’re just prosecuting the point of view.”
