Lawyers representing pro-life activists, some of whom are in prison, for blocking the entrances to abortion clinics are calling on President-elect Donald Trump to pardon them after he takes office.
In a letter dated Jan. 14, four lawyers with the Thomas More Society urged Trump to pardon 21 pro-life activists who faced federal charges under the Biden administration for engaging in what they claimed were peaceful protests. The law firm has represented the 21 pro-life activists who were subject to prosecution for violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act that was signed into law in 1994 by then-President Bill Clinton.
“These peaceful pro-life Americans mistreated by [President Joe] Biden include grandparents, pastors, a Holocaust survivor, and a Catholic priest — all are selfless, sincere patriots. Their respective plights and personal information are provided in attachments to this letter. We respectfully urge that all 21 of them detailed here are richly deserving of full and unconditional pardons.”
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In a statement published in conjunction with the letter, Thomas More Society Senior Counsel Steve Crampton declared, “With these requests for presidential pardons for 21 peaceful pro-life advocates, we urge President Trump to right the grievous wrongs of the Biden administration’s weaponization of the Department of Justice.”
“These 21 peaceful pro-lifers, many of whom are currently imprisoned for bravely standing up for unborn life, are upstanding citizens and pillars of their communities,” Crampton reiterated.
“Through full and unconditional pardons for these pro-life advocates, President Trump has the chance to remedy the harm done to them and their families, deliver on his campaign promises, and repair trust in our constitutional order,” he added.
As Crampton alluded to in his statement shared with CP, during his campaign for president, Trump highlighted the plight of “many peaceful pro-lifers who Joe Biden has rounded up, sometimes with SWAT teams, and thrown in jail” and vowed to pardon these individuals.
Peter Breen, Thomas More Society’s executive vice president and head of litigation, expressed hope that “the second Trump administration will spell a new day for pro-life advocates who have faced FBI raids, federal prosecutions, and severe punishment for peacefully and courageously witnessing for life.”
While individual petitions on behalf of each of the 21 pro-life activists were attached to the letter, they were not made public due to “privacy reasons.”
The Thomas More Society is calling on Trump to issue “full and unconditional pardons” to Chester Gallagher, Eva Edl, Eva Zastrow, Joel Curry, Justin Phillips, Heather Idoni and Calvin Zastrow who have been convicted of violating the FACE Act in connection with a 2020 abortion clinic blockade in Sterling Heights, Michigan.
Gallagher, Edl and the Zastrows were also convicted in connection with a similar blockade in Tennessee, while Idoni faces charges in connection with the Tennessee blockade as well as another protest in Washington, D.C. Additional defendants in the case related to the Tennessee abortion clinic blockade are Coleman Boyd, Dennis Green, Paul Place, Paul Vaughn and James Zastrow.
Gallagher faces 16 months in prison as a result of the Tennessee blockade, while Vaughn, Boyd, Edl, Green, Place, Eva and James Zastrow will not serve any time in prison. Calvin Zastrow was sentenced to six months in prison, while Idoni was given an eight-month sentence.
The other defendants in the Washington, D.C., case are: Joan Bell, Jonathan Darnel, William Goodman, Lauren Handy, Paulette Harlow, John Hinshaw and Jean Marshall. Handy is serving a five-year prison sentence in connection with the Washington, D.C. blockade, while Goodman and Hinshaw received sentences of 27 and 21 months, respectively. Bell was also sentenced to 27 months behind bars, while Darnel received a prison sentence of 34 months. Harlow, Idoni and Marshall are serving two-year prison sentences.
Other individuals the Thomas More Society is asking Trump to pardon include Bevelyn Beatty Williams, who has begun a four-year prison sentence for blocking the entrance to an abortion clinic in New York City in 2020, and Fr. Fidelis Moscinski, a Catholic priest who was sentenced to six months in prison for placing locks on the entrance to a Long Island abortion clinic in 2022.
The FACE Act, the law used to prosecute the pro-life activists, subjects anyone who “intentionally injures, intimidates or interferes with or attempts to injure, intimidate or interfere with any person” seeking to obtain or provide “reproductive health services” to federal charges.
Tuesday’s letter condemns the FACE Act as “facially unconstitutional” and accused the Biden administration of using a double standard to enforce it, noting the lack of action taken to address “almost any of the more than 170 incidents of violence against pro-life pregnancy centers and churches nationwide” following the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson decision determining that the U.S. Constitution does not contain a right to abortion.
The letter also maintains that the Biden administration’s use of a law designed to prosecute members of the Ku Klux Klan when prosecuting violations of the FACE Act runs afoul of Supreme Court precedent and alleges that the jury pools in the cases involving their clients were overwhelmingly tilted against the defendants, thereby depriving them of a right to a fair trial.
The Thomas More Society has reason for optimism that the Trump administration will address their concerns following Wednesday’s confirmation hearing for Pam Bondi, the president-elect’s nominee to serve as attorney general in the forthcoming administration.
Bondi answered in the affirmative when asked by Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., if she would “stop the disparate treatment of Americans on the basis of religious faith,” a common refrain used by critics of the Biden administration’s prosecution of pro-life activists.
At the same time, Bondi stressed to Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., that “the FACE Act not only protects abortion clinics, but it also protects pregnancy centers, and people going for counseling.” She insisted that “the law should be applied evenhandedly,” referring to concerns about the lack of action to address the targeting of pro-life pregnancy centers.
Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: ryan.foley@christianpost.com
