The FACE Act Is a Fiasco

As tools go, the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act — better known as the FACE Act — is more in the vein of a bulldozer than a screwdriver. The Biden administration, outraged over the 2022 Dobbs decision that overturned Roe, has been especially zealous in using it to ride roughshod over nonviolent pro-life activists. ...

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In the D.C. case, a group of pro-life activists were convicted last year of violating the FACE Act when they used chains, locks and their bodies to blockade the Washington Surgi-Clinic in 2020. During the incident, a nurse stumbled and sprained her ankle. The defendants were recently sentenced to federal prison terms ranging from 10 months to nearly five years.


The second group of now-convicted felons is scheduled to be sentenced on July 2. Their crime? Three years ago, they sang hymns and prayed in the hallways of an abortion facility outside Nashville. One of these prayerful singers, Paul Vaughn, was arrested at his house days later by the FBI in front of his wife and 11 children — as happened to Catholic sidewalk counselor Mark Houck in 2022. 

Ed Morrissey

The FACE Act supposedly protects pro-life clinics as well. In this administration, however, the DoJ has been entirely uninterested in attacks on those facilities -- actual violent attacks -- while using the law to persecute those who oppose abortion. 

It's time to get the federal government out of abortion here, too. Repeal the FACE Act and demand that those prosecuted under it are released with their records cleared. 

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