The Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE Act) was passed in 1994 after a string of abortion clinic attacks and pleas from clinics to get rid of the pesky pro-life protesters who were blocking the entrances and were bad for business.
The law was supposed to protect people who wanted to enter abortion clinics as well as those who tried to visit pregnancy crisis centers. It also protects individuals exercising their First Amendment right of religious freedom at places of worship.
Instead, according to data obtained by Rep. Chip Roy's office, 97% of convictions between 1997 and 2024 have been against pro-life activists. The suppression of free speech has resulted in people going to jail as "repeat offenders" despite the non-violent nature of their demonstrations.
In 2022, when the Supreme Court decision repealing Roe vs Wade was leaked to the press, at least 96 pregnancy crisis centers were attacked. There have been arrests reported in connection with only nine of the 96 attacks. Indeed, the FBI has given the crimes a very low priority.
Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon told The Daily Signal, "While the statute is in place, it provides protection for both people who are going to abortion clinics as well as crisis pregnancy centers. And we intend to prosecute numerous attacks that have happened on those over the years with people coming forward with the right evidence that we need.”
Dhillon plans to use the FACE Act to protect houses of worship from blockades and attacks. “Given the tense circumstances in our country right now with antisemitism,” Dhillon said, “that’s definitely going to be one of our focuses as well.”
Dhillon said the Department of Justice has some ongoing investigations into FACE Act violations. For instance, a prosecution is proceeding under the FACE Act for an attack on a fertility clinic.
Though many pro-lifers are advocating for the FACE Act to be taken off the books entirely, Dhillon thinks “there are some good things about the FACE Act.”
“There’s a lot of protections for all kinds of health care facilities,” she said. “Any statute can be abused. And so one other fact is that prosecutorial discretion allows prosecutors to select the cases they’re going to bring. What I will say about cases involving pro-life facilities and crisis pregnancy centers is that I think there are approximately 200 attacks on those in the last few years, but we don’t have 200 cases we can bring because we don’t have evidence of who committed the crimes.”
“We believe in the First Amendment,” Dhillon said. “I hope future generations of civil rights prosecutors also believe in the First Amendment, because it is a critical restraint on how we pursue our jobs here in the Department of Justice.”
Unlike the first Trump administration, where the Department of Justice was riven by factions who opposed everything Trump tried to do, the second Trump term is seeing a lot more agreement from the civil rights division.
“I made the priorities of this administration clear, which are basically advancing the president’s priorities, but within the context of the statutes that we administer in the Civil Rights Division, over 200 attorneys quit,” Dhillon said. “And I think quite a few of those may have been along the more ideologically committed to the prior administration’s priorities.”
Using the FACE Act to prosecute radical left groups like "Jane's Revenge" and "Ruth Sent Us" is long overdue. These domestic terror groups, including antifa, have organized protests outside pregnancy crisis clinics. Many of the attacks have similar messages, including “If abortions aren’t safe, neither are you."
Dhillon will seek to use the expanded prosecutorial power in the FACE Act to bring more perpetrators to justice.
While some in the anti-abortion movement are calling for the repeal of the FACE Act, there are elements in the Act that can protect pro-lifers as long as the law is evenly enforced.
Harmeet Dhillon says she will see to that.
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