The Department of Justice indicted 11 pro-life activists who protested outside a Tennessee abortion clinic Wednesday, saying they violated the FACE Act.
The activists, according to the indictment, organized an event blockading an abortion clinic near Nashville earlier this year. The DOJ alleges the group physically prevented both employees of the clinic and at least one would-be patient from entering the building in early March. The federal FACE Act prohibits demonstrators from blocking access to abortion clinics.
The DOJ charged seven of the protesters with “conspiracy against rights secured by the FACE Act,” including Chester Gallagher, 73; Paul Vaughn, 55; Heather Idoni, 58; Calvin Zastrow, 57; Caroline Davis, 24; Coleman Boyd, 51; Dennis Green, 56.
The indictment also charged four others with committing FACE Act violations: Eva Edl, 87; Eva Zastro, 24; James Zastro, 25; and Paul Place, 24.
PENNSYLVANIA PRO-LIFE ACTIVIST ARRESTED BY FBI, CHARGED WITH ASSAULTING CLINIC ESCORT
Department of Justice, Washington, D.C.
(iStock)
Graffiti and red paint found at Washington, DC’s Capitol Hill Pregnancy Center. (Capitol Hill Pregnancy Center) A pro-life pregnancy center’s office building in Buffalo, New York, was vandalized and the scene of suspected arson. (CompassCare)
(Capitol Hill Pregnancy Center/CompassCare)
Those charged with conspiracy face up to 11 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000. Those charged with FACE Act violations face up to 1 year in prison and a fine of up to $10,000.
The DOJ alleges the protesters planned a “blockade” at the Carafem Health Center Clinic and “blocked the clinic’s entry doors and prevented a patient and an employee from entering.”
The DOJ also states that Boyd livestreamed the incident on social media and that footage showed members of the group “attempting to engage a patient and her companion as Boyd told his livestream audience that the patient was a ‘mom coming to kill her baby.’”
Anti-abortion demonstrators hold a protest outside the Planned Parenthood Reproductive Health Services Center in St. Louis, Missouri, May 31, 2019, the last location in the state performing abortions. SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)
(SAUL LOEB/AFP)
The charges come weeks after the FBI raided the home of a Catholic pro-life activist in Pennsylvania, alleging that he had assaulted a man outside an abortion clinic earlier this year.
Mark Houck, 48, woke to find more than a dozen FBI agents outside his family’s home with their guns drawn on Sept. 23.
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While President Biden’s DOJ has aggressively prosecuted pro-life activists, it has made no arrests in the at least 17 incidents of vandalism and arson against pro-life clinics committed by the radical abortion group “Jane’s Revenge.”
Houck also faces 11 years of prison, including up to 3 years of supervised release and up to $350,000 in fines.
