Attorneys have asked President-elect Donald Trump to grant “full and unconditional” pardons for 21 pro-life activists who were prosecuted, convicted and even imprisoned under the Biden administration for protesting at abortion clinics.
The Thomas More Society attorneys said the Justice Department under President Biden “routinely and unconstitutionally weaponized the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act and ‘Conspiracy Against Rights’ statute against peaceful pro-life advocates.”
“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,” said Steve Crampton, the society’s senior counsel, in a Wednesday statement.
Mr. Trump has criticized the Biden administration’s targeting of the pro-life movement, saying in September 2023 that he would review the “cases of every political prisoner who’s been unjustly persecuted by the Biden administration.”
His comments came after five activists were convicted of blocking access to an abortion clinic at a 2020 protest in Washington, D.C. The leader, Lauren Handy, was sentenced last May to 57 months in prison.
“Peaceable actions like these usually merit, at worst, a minor misdemeanor conviction,” said the Wednesday letter from the Thomas More Society. “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 request comes after a month in which Mr. Biden commuted the sentences of 37 of the 40 men on federal death row; commuted another 1,500 sentences, and issued 40 pardons, including one for his son, Hunter Biden, on felony gun and tax convictions.
None of the pro-life activists was pardoned by the Democratic president, who vowed to protect abortion access after the Supreme Court’s June 2022 decision overturning Roe v. Wade.
Peter Breen, the society’s head of litigation and executive vice president, said he hoped 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.”
“By acting on the requested presidential pardons, President Trump has a golden opportunity to not only stop the lawfare against peaceful pro-lifers, but to also undo some of the unprecedented damage of the Biden administration,” Mr. Breen said.
The 21 advocates were convicted for their roles in protests at abortion clinics in Washington, D.C., Nashville, Detroit, Long Island and Manhattan. The Nashville demonstration took place in 2021, while the other four occurred in 2020, during the first Trump administration.
Those convicted included Bevelyn Beatty Williams, the 33-year-old mother of a toddler, who received 41 months in prison; William Goodman, 54, sentenced to 27 months; Joan Andrews Bell, 76, sentenced to 26 months; Jean Marshall, 73, sentenced to two years; Paulette Harlow, 75, sentenced to two years, and John Hinshaw, 69, sentenced to 21 months.
The attorneys also accused the Biden administration of cracking down on pro-lifers while looking the other way as 170 churches and pro-life facilities were attacked following the leak of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision in May 2022.
More than 90 pro-life centers and pregnancy centers have been targeted by pro-choice activists, according to the CatholicVote tracker, but only three perpetrators have been prosecuted by the Justice Department.
“This is the epitome of First Amendment prohibited content-based selective enforcement based on viewpoint discrimination,” said the letter.
• Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.