This week, the GOP-led U.S. House Judiciary’s Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government held a hearing on “Revisiting the Implications of the FACE Act,” a Clinton-era law that prohibits anyone from physically obstructing access to “reproductive health services.”
Subcommittee members convened Wednesday to further examine the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act’s unequal, politicized application against pro-life activists.
One such defendant, pro-life leader Paul Vaughn, the president of Personhood Tennessee, appeared before the congressional subcommittee to testify about his harrowing experience being prosecuted by the Biden-Harris administration’s U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).
Pro-life advocate Paul Vaughn describes his family’s traumatic experience the day he was arrested at his home by the FBI for an alleged violation of the Face Act.@JudiciaryGOP pic.twitter.com/P81eSNehxu
— Live Action News (@LiveActionNews) December 18, 2024
Federal agents had raided Vaughn’s family residence and arrested him “at gunpoint” for peacefully protesting in front of an abortion clinic in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee, a year and a half prior.
On the morning of October 5, 2022, during school drop-off time, a SWAT team descended on his house, “guns drawn,” Vaugh recounted, handcuffed the father of 11 as his terror-stricken children watched, and whisked him away in an unmarked SUV.
“I heard men shouting on my porch, ‘Open up, FBI!’ The banging continued […] I opened the door and stepped out onto the porch, staring down the barrels of both a pistol and an automatic weapon of war pointed at my head, with another agent carrying his long gun at a low ready position behind the first two [officers],” Vaughn told lawmakers.
Watch:
🚨 One of the pro-life leaders targeted by Biden’s DOJ sent me footage of the early morning FBI raid on his family home. Paul Vaughn was placed in handcuffs by armed FBI agents in front of his children just before school drop-off. Watch as his wife pleads for answers mid-arrest: https://t.co/lUP6tJOSzW pic.twitter.com/XeYComC6mZ
— Mia Cathell (@MiaCathell) October 7, 2022
Vaughn testified that he was taken without the presentation of a warrant or ID when requested. “In fact, one man showed a desire to escalate the lethal risk my family and I faced that morning by responding to my request for identity and authority with taunts.” The agent, puffing out his chest, pointed to a Velcro patch, labeled “FBI,” and said, “This is the only identification you get,” Vaugh recalled.
“Make no mistake, this was an armed conflict, and I was unarmed,” Vaughn said. “Lethal force was abused to abridge my God-given and constitutionally secured rights. At the moment of being placed in handcuffs, I became a slave to ideological tyrants, either the ones holding the weapons or the ones they obeyed.”
Eighteen months before his arrest, Vaughn led a March 2021 pro-life “blockade” that had camped in the hallway outside the door of Carafem Health Center Clinic, an abortion facility located within a medical office building. There, as part of the sit-in, the blockade sang hymns, prayed for the unborn babies about to be slaughtered in the womb, and encouraged women entering the clinic to change course.
More video of the “forceful” blockade captures the pro-life advocates singing church hymns: pic.twitter.com/6wrdog6XAV
— Mia Cathell (@MiaCathell) October 12, 2022
Vaughn’s Christ-centered organization works to achieve universal recognition of the sanctity of human life from conception to death—the belief that all human beings bear the God-given, inalienable right to life as legal persons at every stage of biological development.
Vaughn noted that the Christians participated in what’s known in pro-life activism circles as “a rescue,” an attempt, through non-violent means, to save the lives of unborn children scheduled to die at the hands of abortion providers. According to Personhood Alliance, Vaughn’s parent agency, “a rescue” is an explicitly peaceful form of protest, in which pro-life protestors engage in “America’s long-standing tradition of opposing injustice with peaceful civil disobedience.”
Vaughn, notably, was not arrested that day. “I broke no laws, federal or local,” he said. “We were expecting our 11th child, and I promised my wife I would stay out of any trouble. So, I was very careful to stay within the legal lines.”
Acting as a mediator between law enforcement and the “rescuers,” Vaughn even communicated with the chief of police to bring about a peaceful resolution to the event. In fact, a police spokesperson complimented the peaceful nature of the protest during a press conference that afternoon, and the lead negotiator for the Mt. Juliet Police Department, whom Vaughn interacted with, testified at trial on the defense’s behalf.
Alongside Vaughn, 89-year-old Holocaust survivor Eva Edl was among the assembly of peaceful pro-life advocates indicted and ultimately convicted on FACE Act charges. In the case of Edl, who is awaiting sentencing, time in federal prison could be a potential death sentence, given her age.
“In Biden’s America, you can escape a communist concentration camp and then come to America and be arrested for praying,” Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-TX) remarked.
Instead of charging the far-left terrorists who have firebombed numerous pregnancy centers, Biden’s DOJ is targeting this pro-life grandmother and bookstore owner for peacefully protesting at an abortion clinic. pic.twitter.com/PplVPGwcsj
— Mia Cathell (@MiaCathell) October 6, 2022
Eight pro-life activists, including Edl, who was in a wheelchair, were originally arrested on local misdemeanor trespassing charges for refusing to leave the premises when prompted. Then came the federal indictment, alleging FACE Act violations, many months later.
“There is nothing that the FACE Act does that is not already accomplished by state laws across the land,” Vaughn argued. “If abortion is returned to the states, so should the laws governing it.”
Most pro-life “rescuers” enter abortion clinics with the understanding that they’re subject to arrest and prosecution, but at the local level, likely for a low-rung offense like misdemeanor trespassing, not trumped-up federal charges under the FACE Act.
Criminal defense attorneys representing the pro-life defendants at trial contended that Congress no longer has the jurisdiction to regulate abortion access because the overturning of Roe v. Wade took Congress out of the business of legislating abortion.
Defenders of the FACE Act claim that the law applies to all entities of that nature on both sides of the aisle, including pregnancy crisis centers and places of worship.
However, as CatholicVote’s far-left violence tracker has documented, there’s a double standard evident in the disproportionate, selective enforcement of the FACE Act over the years overwhelmingly against pro-life advocacy. Though the FACE Act should theoretically protect pro-life pregnancy counseling centers, which were especially under attack during the destructive pro-abortion “Summer of Rage,” it is seldom invoked by the Biden-Harris administration to prosecute pro-abortion militants.
Since May 2022, the year that the Dobbs decision overturned Roe, CatholicVote counted 95 attacks on pregnancy resource centers and pro-life groups. There have been 476 incidents targeting Catholic Churches since the George Floyd riots of May 2020. These cases involve firebombings, threats, vandalism, graffiti, and the desecration of holy objects, all in apparent violation of the FACE Act. Yet, to date, there have only been five reported arrests in connection to these attacks on pro-life organizations.
Conversely, since the passage of the FACE Act, the law has been used around 130 times against pro-lifers despite the fact that 70 percent of abortion-related threats of violence post-Dobbs were directed toward pro-life groups. Data shows that attacks on pro-life organizations outnumber attacks on pro-abortion counterparts 22:1.
U.S. attorneys have sought and successfully obtained multi-year federal prison sentences for non-violent pro-life defendants. Meanwhile, many pro-abortion radicals walked away with either being placed on probation or a month behind bars.
Subcommittee chairman Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) concurred that “the vigor with which they [federal prosecutors] pursued and penalized these [leftist] individuals pales in comparison to the penalties faced by pro-life advocates.”
“The reason that statues of Lady Justice show her wearing a blindfold is because it is not supposed to matter who is being judged, what they believe, or who they voted for,” Roy said. “The rule of law demands an equal application of the law without fear or favor.”
The Biden-Harris administration abused the FACE act to target pro-lifers.
Watch Chairman @RepChipRoy’s opening statement detailing these injustices. ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/HXv8PJxveC
— House Judiciary GOP 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 (@JudiciaryGOP) December 18, 2024
“Today’s hearing on the FACE Act should highlight how it has been repeatedly weaponized by corrupt bureaucrats and officials against peaceful pro-life advocates,” Tommy Valentine, the director of CatholicVote’s Catholic Accountability Project, said in a statement shared with Townhall.
Valentine called on Congress to abolish the FACE Act “if it will continue to be unevenly applied by pro-abortion radicals in government to punish peaceful pro-life activists while attacks on pregnancy centers and churches continue unabated.”
“We hope that under President Trump’s watch, true impartiality and justice will be restored to our governing agencies, and the exploitation of governmental power which we have seen run rampant under the Biden Administration will no longer be tolerated,” Valentine said.
Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), ranking member of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, said during Thursday’s proceeding that appealing the FACE Act would be “a nonsensical course of action.” If House Republicans are concerned about uneven enforcement and unequal treatment, “why wouldn’t they simply call for the incoming Trump administration to prioritize cases involving the protection of anti-abortion facilities, which are explicitly protected under the FACE Act?” questioned Nadler.
.@RepMcClintock breaks down the two standards of justice:
Pro-Lifers ➡️ Federal Prison
Church Vandalism ➡️ Probation
Justice under the FACE Act is not being served even handedly. pic.twitter.com/rpj201Bfcd
— House Judiciary GOP 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 (@JudiciaryGOP) December 18, 2024
Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA) found Nadler’s proposal “just as offensive as prioritizing enforcement” of the FACE Act against pro-abortion activists. “Both courses are deeply destructive to the rule of law and equal protection of the law […] It shouldn’t matter what anyone’s personal opinions are. The laws are to be applied equally to all,” McClintock countered.
Nadler’s suggestion appears to confirm concerns that this law is “susceptible to political abuse,” the GOP congressman said. “It sounded like he was encouraging us to abuse it!”
“If we’re to slant enforcement of the law depending upon who’s in power, it seems to me we’ve lost the fundamental principle of equal justice under law,” McClintock assessed.
