When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last June, anti-abortion activists finally won the prize they had sought for decades. But since then, pro-life voices on the right have been on the hunt for a new reason to be aggrieved—and they may have found one: a spate of federal prosecutions against people illegally blocking access to abortion clinics.
“It sure looks like the FBI is just fishing for pro-lifers to prosecute,” the conservative Washington Examiner declared in October.
The backlash to prosecutions has gone mostly unnoticed in mainstream media outlets. And so far, there’s no evidence the activists are being unjustly targeted. But to the right, the cases are proof ahead of the midterms that what conservatives increasingly call the Biden “regime” has unfairly prosecuted activists.
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Most of the attention to the prosecutions has focused on Mark Houck, a Pennsylvania anti-abortion activist arrested in September at his home. According to prosecutors, Houck was protesting outside a Planned Parenthood branch in Philadelphia in October 2021 when he berated and twice shoved a 72-year-old man working as a clinic escort to the ground as the victim helped bring two patients into the clinic.
Houck, like more than 20 other anti-abortion activists this year, is being charged with violations of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act. The law, enacted in 1994 to prevent anti-abortion protesters from blocking staff and patients from reaching abortion clinics, now appears to be key to a renewed Justice Department effort to prosecute protesters who allegedly break the law.
In an echo of right-wing media complaints about how the FBI carried out the arrests of Trump associates and Capitol riot suspects, conservative media outlets lit up after Houck’s arrest, alleging that the FBI had been too heavy-handed. LifeSite, an anti-abortion news outlet, declared that Houck was arrested while his “terrified” seven children looked on. Twenty-two Republican members of Congress sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland demanding proof that Houck’s arrest wasn’t an “extraordinary overreach for political ends.”
“The FBI descended on his home to arrest him,” former Trump White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, now a Fox News host, said on the channel days after Houck’s arrest.
“It goes to further a notion that this is a politicized organization,” said Trump daughter-in-law Lara Trump, appearing on McEnany’s show.
Fundraising efforts on Houck’s behalf have proven to be hugely successful on the right. Houck’s family has raised more than $380,000 on GiveSendGo, a crowdfunding site popular with right-wing causes.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano, who has supported the QAnon conspiracy theory and other fringe groups, has also taken up Houck’s cause. In a statement issued after Houck’s arrest, Mastriano claimed—without a shred of evidence—that Houck’s home was raided by “a heavily armed SWAT team” sent by the “Biden regime.”
“I will not allow the police state of Joe Biden to enforce his persecution against his political enemies on sacred Pennsylvania soil,” Houck’s statement read
The FBI has denied that a SWAT team was sent to Houck’s house.
Asked about the spate of FACE Act prosecutions, a spokesperson for the Justice Department referred The Daily Beast to a DOJ website listing recent prosecutions under the law. Federal prosecutors have filed at least six FACE Act cases in 2022, according to that website, as well as four more in 2021. By comparison, during the Trump administration, the Justice Department only lists five FACE Act cases being filed.
In June, Garland cited the FACE Act as a tool to protect abortion access after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
“The Justice Department will work tirelessly to protect and advance reproductive freedom,” Garland said in a statement.
The Thomas More Center, an anti-abortion legal group representing Houck, didn’t respond to a request for comment. In interviews with conservative media outlets, one of Houck’s attorneys denied he “did anything wrong.” His lawyer said Houck was protecting his son, who was also protesting at the clinic, from the elderly man.
Houck isn’t the only anti-abortion activist facing a FACE Act prosecution this year. Ten protesters have been indicted for allegedly blocking access to a Washington, D.C.-area abortion clinic and livestreaming the activity, according to prosecutors.
In October, 11 anti-abortion activists were indicted over an alleged scheme to block access to a Nashville-area abortion abortion clinic. Other cases included a man accused of pouring superglue on a clinic’s gate and a man who shot a pellet gun at a clinic.
