Thomas More Society attorneys officially submitted pardon petitions to the incoming Trump administration this week on behalf of 21 pro-life advocates they say have been “unjustly convicted” by President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice (DOJ).
“With these requests for presidential pardons for 21 peaceful pro-life advocates, we urge President Trump to right the grievous wrongs of the Biden administration’s weaponization of the Department of Justice,” Thomas More Society Senior Counsel Steve Crampton said in a statement, adding:
These 21 peaceful pro-lifers, many of whom are currently imprisoned for bravely standing up for unborn life, are upstanding citizens and pillars of their communities. Through full and unconditional pardons for these pro-life advocates, President Trump has the chance to remedy the harm done to them and their families, deliver on his campaign promises, and repair trust in our constitutional order.
Thomas More Society, a conservative national public interest law firm, submitted the pardon petitions after several promises from President-elect Donald Trump on the campaign trail to review and potentially pardon or commute the sentences of every “political prisoner who’s been unjustly persecuted by the Biden administration,” including pro-life activists.
“We are hopeful that the second Trump administration will spell a new day for pro-life advocates who have faced FBI raids, federal prosecutions, and severe punishment for peacefully and courageously witnessing for life,” Thomas More Society Executive Vice President and Head of Litigation Peter Breen added.
Biden’s DOJ has been accused of using the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act to go after pro-life activists. The 1994 law, signed by then-President Bill Clinton, prohibits “violent, threatening, damaging, and obstructive conduct intended to injure, intimidate, or interfere with the right to seek, obtain, or provide reproductive health services.” The act was written to equally protect abortion clinics, pro-life pregnancy resource centers, and churches. However, 97 percent of FACE Act cases since the law’s inception have been against pro-life advocates.
Data obtained by Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) shows that in less than four years, Biden’s DOJ has accounted for more than a quarter of all 211 FACE prosecutions. At least 55 FACE Act cases have been prosecuted during the Biden administration, only five of which were against pro-abortion attacks on pregnancy centers, despite the increase in attacks against pro-life pregnancy centers and churches following the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision.
Roy and other Republicans have proposed legislation that would repeal the FACE Act, and called the law “an unconstitutional federal takeover of state police powers.”
Biden’s DOJ has been blatant in its support for abortion, establishing a “Reproductive Rights Task Force” in 2022 to “protect access to reproductive health care” in anticipation of the overturn of Roe v. Wade. The DOJ also strategized before the end of Roe to pair the FACE Act charges and conspiracy against rights in order to increase sentencing for pro-life activists specifically.
For a few cases, the FBI has allegedly conducted early morning raids against pro-life advocates, even allegedly holding them at gunpoint in front of their families.
The 21 advocates included in the pardon requests 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.
The activists listed span five different cases, including in Washington, D.C.; Nashville, Tennessee; Detroit, Michigan; Long Island, New York; and Manhattan, New York.
While Thomas More Society could not share each individual pardon request for privacy reasons, attorneys released the pardon request package cover letter. In it, attorneys lay out how the Biden administration used the FACE Act, often paired with the KKK-era conspiracy against rights charge, to target pro-life activists unfairly.
Attorneys wrote:
We represent peaceful pro-life Americans, some of whom were unjustly imprisoned and others unjustly convicted by the Biden Department of Justice for demonstrating at abortion facilities. They have been heartened during their imprisonment and unjust prosecutions by your repeated messages to them during your campaign, urging them to persevere until you were able to take office, review their cases, and free them.
They are also especially thankful for your highlighting their plight to the public, including your specific noting of the injustice of the imprisonment of our clients, many still suffering in prison today because of the callous cruelty of the Biden DOJ,” the letter continues. “These peaceful pro-life Americans mistreated by Biden include grandparents, pastors, a Holocaust survivor, and a Catholic priest—all are selfless, sincere patriots. Their respective plights and personal information are provided in attachments to this letter. We respectfully urge that all 21 of them detailed here are richly deserving of full and unconditional pardons.”
The letter notes that “while Biden’s prosecutors almost entirely ignored the firebombing and vandalism of hundreds of pro-life churches and pregnancy centers, they viciously pursued pro-life Americans, obtaining convictions against them under the federal “FACE Act” and the Ku Klux Klan Act’s “Conspiracy Against Rights” felony provisions.”
“But these individuals participated in mere peaceable civil disobedience, in the heralded tradition of the American Civil Rights activists. Peaceable actions like these usually merit, at worst, a minor misdemeanor conviction. And had they been opposing anything but abortion, Joe Biden would have given them medals—instead Biden wanted them branded as ‘convicted felons’ and imprisoned for years in a federal penitentiary,” the letter reads. “We thus respectfully request that you right the wrongs of the Biden DOJ and grant full and unconditional pardons to [these activists].”
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