(The Daily Signal)—Sen. Mike Lee will reintroduce a bill Thursday to repeal the FACE Act, which has been weaponized against at least 50 pro-life advocates.
“[Former President] Joe Biden’s unjust weaponization of the FACE Act against pro-life activists and people of faith belongs in the dustbin of history,” Lee, R-Utah, told The Daily Signal. “While President [Donald] Trump is stopping these outrageous prosecutions, we should ensure that no future administration has the ability to persecute Americans through unequal application of the law.”
Since 2021, the Biden-Harris administration’s Justice Department brought criminal or civil cases under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances, or FACE, Act, against pro-lifers who prayed outside abortion clinics and urged women in unplanned pregnancies to choose life.
Twenty-one pro-lifers were convicted and 10 are currently incarcerated.
Biden’s critics accused him and his DOJ of weaponizing the FACE Act against pro-lifers while charging hardly any pro-abortion criminals for the hundreds of attacks on pregnancy resource centers since the May 2022 leak of the draft Supreme Court opinion indicating Roe v. Wade would soon be overturned.
According to data from Former Attorney General Merrick Garland’s DOJ, 97% of FACE Act prosecutions from 1994-2024 were against pro-life Americans.
Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, released the House companion on Tuesday.
“Americans just spent the last four years being targeted by a weaponized justice system,” Roy said. “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.”
The 21 convicted pro-lifers, many of whom are represented by Catholic law firm Thomas More Society, officially asked Trump to grant them “full and unconditional pardons” on Jan. 15.
Now is the time to pardon all 21 pro-lifers wrongfully convicted under the FACE Act.
— Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell (@TheElizMitchell) January 21, 2025
The pro-lifers for whom the Thomas More Society requested pardons for are: Joan Bell, Coleman Boyd, Joel Curry, Jonathan Darnel, Eva Edl, Chester Gallagher, William Goodman, Dennis Green, Lauren Handy, Paulette Harlow, John Hinshaw, Heather Idoni, Jean Marshall, Fr. Fidelis Moscinski, Justin Phillips, Paul Place, Paul Vaughn, Bevelyn Beatty Williams, Calvin Zastrow, Eva Zastrow, and James Zastrow.
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“While President Trump and his team are already fast at work reversing the damage of the J6 political prosecutions and persecutions through pardons and commutations, I am hopeful those targeted under the FACE Act will be given similar relief,” Roy said. “But importantly, we in Congress need to do our part to eliminate the laws used for the weaponization, including the FACE Act.”