DOJ Charges 8 More Pro-Lifers With Violating FACE Act

The Department of Justice has charged eight more pro-life activists with violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act.

The latest charges stem from a August 2020 incident where pro-life activists Calvin Zastrow, Chester Gallagher, Heather Idoni, Caroline Davis, Joel Curry, Justin Phillips, Eva Edl and Eva Zastrow allegedly blockaded the entrance to a Sterling Heights, Michigan abortion clinic.

These eight individuals blocked the door to an abortion clinic on Aug. 27, 2020, according to a DOJ release, which also states that Gallagher advertised their intentions on social media, he and Curry livestreamed the blockade, and another “uncharged co-conspirator” recorded the incident while saying that they were “going to stand in front of the door” and “interpose.”

Idoni and Edl were also charged with FACE Act violations related to an incident at an abortion clinic in Saginaw, Michigan, in April 2021, the DOJ said.

The case was investigated by the FBI Detroit Field Office and the Bay City Resident Agency, the DOJ said, and the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division — headed by Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke — and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Michigan are prosecuting the case.

It comes on the heels of a jury’s acquittal of Mark Houck, a Catholic father and pro-life activist arrested at gunpoint by President Joe Biden’s DOJ in front of his children. The Biden DOJ has said it is enforcing the FACE Act as a direct response to the overturn of Roe v. Wade.

The DOJ charged 26 pro-life activists with FACE Act violations in 2022 alone, but did not charge a single pro-abortion activist with FACE Act charges in 2022, despite over 100 apparent pro-abortion attacks on pro-life pregnancy centers and churches across the nation, according to CatholicVote trackers.

Finally, in late January, the DOJ indicted two radical activists for attacking pro-life facilities in Florida.

Catholic Vote President Brian Burch told The Daily Signal that the DOJ announcement “further confirms that this Administration will spare no expense or resource when it comes to hunting down pro-life Americans.”

“The shame is that they have no interest in equally pursuing pro-abortion domestic criminals that have vandalized and desecrated hundreds of churches and pregnancy care centers,” Burch said. “The Department of Justice should not play favorites when enforcing the law, yet that seems to be the new policy. Once again, when it comes to abortion, all pretense of equal justice is abandoned.”

The DOJ did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Daily Signal for this story.

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