Florida uses pro-abortion law to protect pro-life centers
Florida is re-purposing a law used for protecting abortion centers and persecuting pro-life Americans to instead protect pro-life pregnancy centers.
The Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act makes it a federal crime “to use force with the intent to injure, intimidate and interfere with anyone” who provides abortion services. Although the Clinton-era law also protects pregnancy centers and churches, it was originally intended to ensure abortion. The Biden administration weaponized the law almost exclusively to support abortion centers, and federal prosecutors often stretched it to cover Americans who protest abortion, even when they did so peacefully. Taxpayers charged with the FACE Act have been subjected to violent raids by the FBI, similar to those visited on the January 6th hostages. Meanwhile, the DOJ turned a blind eye to a string of violent domestic terror attacks on pro-life pregnancy centers. After these attacks numbered over 100, the House of Representatives passed a resolution condemning the violence and demanding action from the Biden administration.
The State of Florida has sued four pro-abortion domestic terrorists who vandalized a pregnancy center for violating the FACE Act. According to the Daily Wire, a $10,000 civil fine was paid by one of the attackers belonging to the pro-abortion terror groups Antifa and Jane’s Revenge. Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier transferred the fine to the state’s chief financial officer last week, saying the payer had “unlawfully threatened employees of a Florida pregnancy resource facility.”
“The U.S. Department of Justice brought criminal charges against the defendants under the same Act,” Uthmeier explained in his Wednesday letter. “Three of the defendants pleaded guilty and one — the defendant whose fine I am transmitting today — was convicted by a jury.”
“As a result of our civil action, the federal court enjoined the defendants from coming within 100 feet of the seven pregnancy resource centers at issue in our lawsuit for the next ten years, entered a judgement for each defendant to pay fines ranging from $1,100 to $13,000, and directed them to apologize to the crisis pregnancy facilities for their wrongful acts.”
The attorney general described how abortionists have been escalating their terror attacks since the US Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that ultimately overturned Roe v. Wade.
“We in Florida will not sit idly by when thugs attempt to threaten, intimidate and harass pro-life facilities who offer life-saving healthcare free of charge to Florida women,” vowed Uthmeier. “As the State’s chief legal officer, I will ensure that pro-abortion bullies who violate the law will be held accountable.”
Limits on the FACE Act and pro-life pardons
In January, the Trump DOJ issued a memo limiting federal prosecution under the FACE Act. The law will now only apply to “extraordinary circumstances” or cases involving “death, serious bodily harm, or serious property damage.”
“Additionally, until further notice, no new abortion-related FACE Act actions — criminal or civil — will be permitted without authorization from the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division,” the memo said.
The memo came a day after President Trump issued an executive order pardoning dozens of pro-life Americans targeted by Biden’s DOJ for protesting abortion and saying they “should not have been prosecuted.” The president added that it was a “great honor” to sign the order.
One of those pardoned, a father of 11 named Paul Vaughn, was violently raided by the FBI at his home on an early September morning in 2022 for peacefully protesting abortion. Agents arrested Vaughn at gunpoint and terrorized his wife and children.
“The FACE Act was ostensibly passed because of violence. But as my family knows very well, all it did was give violence the cover of law and place it in the hands of the government,” Vaughn said in testimony to Congress, adding that the FACE Act was passed to “stifle free speech and abuse the rights of Christian conservatives.”
Last month, President Trump cited the persecution of pro-life Americans when he signed an executive order establishing a task force to root out any anti-Christian bias remaining from the Biden administration. The Task Force to End the War on Christians will be headed by Attorney General Pam Bondi.
“[T]he previous Administration engaged in an egregious pattern of targeting peaceful Christians, while ignoring violent, anti-Christian offenses,” read the order. “The Biden Department of Justice sought to squelch faith in the public square by bringing Federal criminal charges and obtaining in numerous cases multi-year prison sentences against nearly two dozen peaceful pro-life Christians for praying and demonstrating outside abortion facilities.”
