WASHINGTON (BP) – President Donald Trump signed an executive order Jan. 23 pardoning 23 pro-lifers convicted of federal crimes for blocking entrances to abortion clinics before the overturning of Roe v. Wade, some of whom were serving prison sentences.
“They should not have been prosecuted. Many of them are elderly people,” Trump said at the signing ceremony. “This is a great honor to sign this.”
While the names of those pardoned were not immediately released, the pro-life non-profit law firm Thomas More Society, released the names of 21 of those pardoned, identifying them as the firm’s clients.
“The heroic peaceful pro-lifers unjustly imprisoned by Biden’s Justice Department will now be freed and able to return home to their families, eat a family meal and enjoy the freedom that should have never been taken from them in the first place,” Thomas More Senior Counsel Steve Crampton said of the pardons.
Crampton led the legal effort to defend many of the pro-lifers, and led Thomas More in petitioning Trump for their pardon.
“Today, their precious freedom is restored,” Crampton said Jan. 23. “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.”
Trump signed the executive order in advance of today’s (Jan. 24) 2025 March for Life in Washington, where he was scheduled to make remarks virtually. Thousands were expected to attend, including representatives of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC).
Thomas More petitioned Trump on Jan. 14 for the pardon of 21 pro-life advocates convicted and/or imprisoned for protesting at abortion clinics as violations of the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act and the Ku Klux Klan Act’s “Conspiracy Against Rights” felony provisions.
Demonstrations the pardoned activists participated in were held in Nashville, Washington, Detroit, and the New York boroughs of Long Island and Manhattan.
“But these individuals participated in mere peaceable civil disobedience, in the heralded tradition of the American Civil Rights activists,” Thomas More Society wrote in the Jan. 14 appeal signed by eight attorneys. “Peaceable actions like these usually merit, at worst, a minor misdemeanor conviction.”
As indicated in the graphs below, several of those pardoned had been convicted of violations in multiple protests.
Pardoned of their convictions related to a protest blocking entrance to Carafem Health Center Clinic, a facility inside the multi-tenant Providence Medical Pavilion in Mt. Juliet, Tenn., in March 2021, are Paul Vaughn, Coleman Boyd, Dennis Green, Eva Edl, James Zastrow, Paul Place, Heather Idoni, Eva Zastrow, Chester Gallagher and Calvin Zastrow.
Pardoned of their convictions related to a protest in Washington in 2020 are Lauren Handy, Paulette Harlow, Jean Marshall, Joan Bell, John Hinshaw, William Goodman, Idoni, and Jonathan Darnel.
Pardoned of their convictions related to a protest in Detroit are Gallagher, Edl, Eva Zastrow, Joel Curry, Justin Phillips, Idoni, and Calvin Zastrow.
Fidelis Moscinski, a priest, was pardoned of his conviction related to a protest on Long Island, and Bevelyn Beatty Williams was pardoned of her conviction related to a protest in Manhattan in 2020.
While all protestors have been described as peaceful, some had been convicted of using force to block entrance to clinics.
Williams had been sentenced to 41 months in prison for “interference, including by threats and force, with individuals seeking to obtain and provide lawful reproductive health services,” according to the Department of Justice, which wrote that Williams was charged with “crushing” a clinic staff member’s hand in a door during the protest.
The FACE Act, according to U.S. Code, criminalizes certain actions involving the use or threat of force to intimidate persons seeking or providing reproductive health services; and prohibits anyone from intentionally injuring, by force or physical obstruction, anyone lawfully exercising or seeking to exercise the First Amendment right of religious freedom at a place of religious worship.
In a piece released last year and revised earlier this week, Alliance Defending Freedom called for the repeal of the FACE Act.
“The First Amendment prohibits the federal government from discriminating on the basis of viewpoint,” ADF said. “The Biden administration’s actions went far beyond mere prosecutorial discretion into the realm of selective enforcement. The Biden Department of Justice’s consistent enforcement of the FACE Act against pro-life advocates, paired with its unwillingness to enforce the law against those vandalizing pregnancy centers, points to a biased application that likely violated the First Amendment.
“What’s more, the FACE Act is fraught with constitutional issues regardless of how it’s enforced. Any law passed by Congress must be based on powers enumerated in the Constitution, a test that the FACE Act struggles to pass.”
ERLC President Brent Leatherwood shared the ADF piece on social media Thursday (Jan. 23), adding: “Without a doubt, the best course of action would be to stop all abortionists and abortion clinics that profit from the destruction of life from operating. Period. Not only would that end these prosecutions, it would move us further along in establishing a real culture of life.”
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