On Monday, Trump signed a sweeping executive order granting full pardons to approximately 1,500 individuals charged in connection with the January 6 Capitol riot, fulfilling a key campaign promise to address what he called politically motivated prosecutions by the Biden administration. His actions have sparked optimism within the pro-life community that he will similarly pardon the activists prosecuted under the Biden Justice Department’s enforcement of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, The DW reported.
“I hope President Trump will shortly pardon the pro-life prisoners unjustly targeted & jailed by the Biden Administration,” Republican Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley posted to “X” on Wednesday. “They deserve to be free.”
On Thursday, The Daily Signal was the first to report that Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) had re-introduced a bill to repeal the FACE Act.
“While President [Donald] Trump is stopping these outrageous prosecutions, we should ensure that no future administration has the ability to persecute Americans through unequal application of the law,” Lee told the outlet.
Republican Rep. Chip Roy of Texas introduced a companion bill in the House on Tuesday, saying Republicans needed to take advantage of their control of Congress and the White House, the DW noted.
During his campaign, Trump repeatedly ripped the Biden DOJ for targeting pro-lifers on “outrageous charges,” promising on the campaign trail to “rapidly review the cases of every political prisoner who’s unjustly victimized by the Biden regime…so we can get them out of the gulags and back to their families where they belong.”
The pardons would bring immediate relief to those currently imprisoned, including Lauren Handy (57 months in prison), John Hinshaw (21 months), Jonathan Darnell (34 months), Herb Geraghty (27 months), Jean Marshall (24 months), Joan Bell (27 months), Paulette Harlow (24 months), Bevelyn Williams (41 months), Heather Idoni (24 months), and Calvin Zastrow (6 months), the DW noted.
The outlet added that the defendants were arrested, tried, and convicted for pro-life protests in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Tennessee.
The D.C. protest involved a group of pro-life activists who, in October 2020, gathered at the Surgi-Clinic—a late-term abortion facility—where they sang hymns, prayed, linked arms at the staff entrance, and used ropes and chains to block doors inside the building. In Tennessee, a group of pro-life Christians assembled outside the Carafem Health Center in Mt. Juliet in March 2021, where they sang hymns, prayed, and urged women to reconsider their decisions about abortion.
Many of the defendants have already spent over a year in prison, with many facing additional months behind bars. “I would love to be home with my family,” 59-year-old Heather Idoni said in September. “I would love to hold my new grandson.”
She was sentenced to two years in prison over the D.C. protest and was given another eight months to serve concurrently from the Nashville protest, the DW reported.
The pardons would also provide relief to those awaiting sentencing, including 89-year-old Eva Edl. A survivor of a World War II-era Yugoslavian concentration camp, Edl was convicted in Detroit on charges under the FACE Act and a felony conspiracy charge. She now faces the possibility of a prison sentence exceeding a decade.
