Pro-Life Protesters Receive Pardon from Trump after Persecution under Biden

by Seamus Othot | Jan 24, 2025

President Donald Trump issued a full pardon on Thursday for 23 pro-life activists who were incarcerated after the Biden Administration prosecuted them under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act for peacefully protesting against abortion.

“23 people were prosecuted, they should not have been prosecuted. Many of them are elderly people, they should not have been prosecuted, this is a great honor to sign this,” said President Trump as he signed the pardon.

The Thomas More Society, a pro-life legal non-profit, submitted a formal request for pardon to Trump on behalf of 21 of the 23 pardoned pro-life activists.

“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. 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,” said Thomas More Society Senior Counsel Steve Crampton in a statement.

The Biden administration aggressively prosecuted pro-lifers, convicting the anti-abortion activists for peaceful protests.

In January, President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice secured the conviction of six of the now-pardoned pro-lifers on FACE Act violations and “conspiracy against rights” after they peacefully sat and prayed in front of the entrance to a Nashville, Tennessee, abortion clinic.

That peaceful protest led to heavily armed FBI agents showing up to arrest Paul Vaughan at his home in front of his family.

One woman convicted for the same peaceful protest, Heather Idoni, 59, claimed that she spent 22 days in solitary confinement.

President Biden’s persecution of pro-life activists even extends to the elderly, including 75-year-old Paulette Harlow, 75-year-old Chester Gallagher, and even 89-year-old Eva Edl, a survivor of a Communist Soviet death camp.

Though Trump’s pardons freed the current victims of Biden’s “lawfare,” the FACE Act remains in effect and ripe for abuse by a future liberal administration.

The FACE Act, originally passed into law in 1994 under President Bill Clinton, is used to prevent anyone from obstructing access to abortion clinics or places of worship.

Although the act also applies to places of worship, data obtained by Rep. Chip Roy (R-Tex.) showed that, since it was signed into law, 97 percent of FACE Act prosecutions have been against pro-life advocates.

Rep. Roy reintroduced a bill on Tuesday to abolish the FACE Act.

“Americans just spent the last four years being targeted by a weaponized justice system.  The FACE Act was one of the primary weapons of abuse — being used to politically target, arrest, and jail pro-life Americans for speaking out and standing up for life,” said Rep. Roy.

Seamus Othot is a reporter for The Maine Wire. He grew up in New Hampshire, and graduated from The Thomas More College of Liberal Arts, where he was able to spend his time reading the great works of Western Civilization. He can be reached at [email protected]

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