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WASHINGTON — President Trump pardoned nearly two dozen pro-life activists Thursday who were convicted under a federal law of illegally trying to block abortion clinic entrances or otherwise keep women from undergoing the procedure.
The pardons, Trump said in the Oval Office, will go to 23 “peaceful protestors” who were prosecuted under the Biden administration.
“Twenty-three people were prosecuted who should not have been prosecuted. Many of them are elderly people. They should not have been prosecuted,” the president said. “This is a great honor to sign this.”
The Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, enacted in 1994 by former President Bill Clinton, prohibits use of physical force, threat of physical force, or physical obstruction to injure, intimidate or otherwise interfere with “any class of persons [in] obtaining or providing reproductive health services.”
The law also has the same stipulations allowing free access to places of worship — but conservatives say Democratic administrations have been more interested in prosecuting abortion clinic obstruction.
Trump issued the pardons one day before the annual March for Life in Washington, DC, which he will address via video feed.
The Republican had vowed on the campaign trail to issue the pardons if he got to the White House.
“Many people are in jail over this,” Trump said in June during a speech to the Faith and Freedom Coalition. “We’re going to get that taken care of immediately — [on the] first day.”
One of those expected to be pardoned, Lauren Handy, was sentenced to five years in prison last year following her October 2020 conviction for trying to block the doors of a DC abortion clinic and streaming the action online.
Prosecutors said Handy’s actions left one nurse with a sprained ankle suffered when she was pushed to the ground, while an expectant mother experiencing labor pains was blocked from getting inside.
In a subsequent search of Handy’s home, authorities said, they found five fetuses stashed in coolers.
Others who were imprisoned under the FACE Act and expected to be pardoned include: John Hinshaw (sentenced to 21 months), William Goodman (27 months), Jonathan Darnel (34 months), Herb Geraghty (27 months), Jean Marshall (24 months), Joan Bell (27 months), Bevelyn Williams (41 months), Heather Idoni (24 months) and Calvin Zastrow (6 months), according to the Daily Wire.
Hinshaw, Bell, Harlow, Marshall and Idoni were all in their sixties and seventies around the time of their imprisonment.
Critics of the prosecutions say the Biden administration went hard after pro-life activists with the intent to intimidate them, sometimes using SWAT teams and asking for prison terms longer than the usual six months for first-time offenders.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) posted a video earlier Thursday calling for Trump to release the prisoners, including 89-year-old Eva Edl, a pro-life activist and survivor of a communist concentration camp in the former Yugoslavia.
“Biden prosecuted pro-lifers—including an 89-year-old concentration camp survivor—for singing hymns in a clinic hallway,” Hawley said on X. “And then Biden turned around & handed out pardons for criminal murderers on his last day in office. President Trump can & should right these wrongs.”
