For the record, FACE is short for “Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances.” As has become much too obvious, only one side of the abortion debate has been awarded federal protection. Since the leak of the Dobbs decision on May 3, attacks against pro-life entities and the Catholic church, already a problem, have only escalated.

The Catholic News Agency reports 97 such attacks in the months following the leak, 53 of them against pregnancy centers. These include vulgar pro-abortion graffiti, the beheading of statues, the desecration of altars, threats, theft, and even arson. Several have involved the disruption of church services and nasty confrontations with the police.

At least two of these incidents took place in the jurisdiction of the two Jacquelines. In May 2022, for instance, the glass front doors of Notre Dame de Lourdes church in Swarthmore were spray-painted with the unsubtle message: ‘You do not have the right to decide what people can do, #ProChoice.” In June, vandals defaced St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in Philadelphia with pro-abortion graffiti.

As far as anyone knows, the DoJ has ignored all these incidents despite the implicit civil rights violations involved. For its apparatchiks, “extremists” like Houck are the enemy. “If convicted,” they tell us, “the defendant faces a maximum possible sentence of 11 years in prison, three years of supervised release, and fines of up to $350,000.”