Posted on 02/06/2025 7:21:56 AM PST by ebb tide
Joe Biden is weaponizing the Justice Department to viciously persecute pro-life activists and Americans of faith. Just last month, the Biden DOJ got Paulette Harlow, a 75-year-old woman in poor health, sentenced to two years in prison for singing outside of a clinic…she was singing, actually a beautiful voice, she was singing beautifully outside of a clinic. And fearing she would die in prison, her husband pleaded with the judge for mercy and even asked to be thrown in prison with his wife and the judge responded by mocking their religion, he was mocking their religion. I wonder who that judge is.
Paulette is one of many peaceful pro-lifers who Joe Biden has rounded up, sometimes with SWAT teams, and thrown them in jail. Many people are in jail over this. This is just crazy. We’re going to get that taken care of immediately, first day, immediately.
But let’s call these brave Americans what they really are, it’s persecuted Christians. That’s what they are.
The above words were spoken by Donald Trump during a June 22, 2024, Faith and Freedom Coalition event, creating great expectations that indeed pro-life prisoners would at some point be free. Trump did get a few facts wrong; for one, Paulette Harlow, who participated in the October 22, 2020, rescue at the Washington, D.C., Surgi-Center, did sing hymns—but not outside the abortion center—but well within the waiting room, while she and fellow rescuer Joan Andrews Bell, in defense of the unborn about to be aborted, blocked a door they believed led to the abortion procedure rooms.
If Trump got one thing straight it was the fact that the Justice Department under Biden was indeed weaponized to “viciously persecute pro-life activists.” While Trump did not pardon the twenty-three pro-lifers on the “first day, immediately”— when he was inaugurated January 20th—he did make good on his pledge the day before the March for Life, January 24th—in time for some of them to be freed from prison and attend the March on January 25th, as did Joan Andrews Bell. The majority of the convicted pro-lifers, in defense of the unborn about to be killed, physically blocked abortion center doors or hallways—thus resulting in being charged with the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, a bill signed by Bill Clinton in May 1994—which carries, at most, a one-year maximum prison term.
But Biden’s rabidly pro-abortion U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, through the Civil Rights Division, brought an additional charge: namely, Conspiracy to Interfere with Civil Rights—a charge unprecedented in the history of pro-life activism. Not even in the heyday of the pro-life rescue movement, when tens-of-thousands of pro-lifers were arrested, did rescuers face such a charge. It carries a ten-year maximum prison term and a $350,000 fine.
I attended the trials and the sentencings of the D.C. rescuers who came to be called the “Garland 9.” I spent days in the federal courtroom of Colleen Kollar-Kotelly and wrote about my first-hand experience for this magazine. The Washington, D.C., Surgi-Center abortionist Cesare Santangelo kills unborn children through the ninth month of pregnancy and even admits, in an undercover Live Action video, that should a “live-birth” occur during an abortion, he will do “nothing” to save such babies. Despite these facts, as was the case in all of the rescue trials, the pro-life defendants were denied a “defense of others.”
I have also been put on trial, been convicted, and even served a few jail terms for pro-life rescues, so I know very well the insanity of the legal system when it comes to the abortion issue. It’s simple: the unborn simply do not exist. A judge once denied our motion for a “defense of necessity” by arguing that since abortions were a constitutionally protected right “no injury is caused when abortions are performed of which this court need take notice and it is unreasonable for defendants to believe that their actions were necessary to prevent such harm.” On March 30, 2023, I was sentenced again for a Red Rose Rescue in which I participated. Standing before Michigan Judge Cynthia Arvant, I addressed the court and said “Your honor, in the objective world of right and wrong, I am not guilty.” The judge responded: “I don’t operate in the objective world.”
Pro-lifers arrested for their participation in rescues of the unborn must endure the contrived and artificial fantasy world of the pro-life trial—or as one of my favorite attorneys calls it, “the abortion distortion.” And this distortion was on full display in the August and September 2023 trials of nine pro-lifers who participated in the Washington, D.C., rescue.
The other pardoned pro-lifers had participated in various rescues that took place in New York, Tennessee, Florida, and Michigan. The twenty-three who were pardoned represent a diverse group, from devout Catholics like Joan Andrews Bell; to committed Evangelical Protestants such as Cal Zastrow; to eighty-nine-year-old Eva Edl, who as a teenager survived a Communist concentration camp in Romania; to twenty-six-year-old Herb Geraghty who identifies herself as “non-binary” and atheist. The pardoned twenty-three also include one Hispanic, Jay Smith, and one African American, Bevelyn Williams. Most ironically, Caroline Davis also received a Trump pardon of her convictions in the Tennessee and Michigan rescues. Why ironic? In order to avoid jail time, Davis turned state’s evidence against her fellow pro-lifers. In the D.C. case, escorted by federal marshals, she took the stand, testified against them, and helped seal their fate.
The unprecedented prosecution, conviction, and draconian jail terms handed to these pro-lifers was equally matched by the unprecedented presidential pardons. And Trump pardoned them with a flourish. With the inauguration come and gone and the pro-lifers not pardoned on “day one,” some pro-lifers with whom I spoke thought he just might not make good on his pledge after all—or, due to the incredible controversy the pardons were sure to generate, that Trump would sign the pardons quietly, late on a Friday night as politicians are apt to do when they seek to diffuse and deaden opposition. But this was hardly the case. With cameras rolling, Trump, seated at his desk in the Oval Office, was addressed by his aide, who said: “You have a set of pardons for peaceful pro-life protestors who were prosecuted by the Biden administration for exercising their first amendment rights.”
Trump asked, “Do you know how many?”
“I believe it is twenty-three, sir.”
Trump explained, “Twenty-three people who were prosecuted. They should not have been prosecuted. Many of them are elderly people. They should not have been prosecuted.”
As he penned his signature to the pardon document Trump stated, “This is a great honor to sign this.”
He then proudly lifted up the document and displayed it to reporters, adding: “They’ll be very happy.”
But before the signing ceremony was over, he turned to his aide and asked: “So they’re all in prison now?”
The aide responded: “Some are out of prison on custody,” to which Trump ended the signing with one word: “Ridiculous.”
And on that very day, federal prisons began releasing pro-life prisoners, some of whom breathed the air of freedom in the wee morning hours of January 25th.
Perhaps another clarification is in order. The pro-lifers were not simply convicted of “exercising their first amendment rights.” In their defense of unborn children about to be killed, all but three of the rescuers indeed placed their bodies in front of entrances to the abortion facilities or blocked abortion center hallways, essentially conducting sit-in type activity—life-defending action in which this author herself has participated.
Prior to the 1994 FACE Act, pro-lifers might expect to be issued a city citation for disorderly conduct or a state misdemeanor charge. But FACE turned pro-lifers into felons. They are the only social protest group to be singled out for harsher punishment. Anti-war demonstrators, environmentalist protestors, animal rights activists, and members of Black Lives Matter can conduct similar sit-in activity without facing federal penalties.
The expected condemnation of the pardons came swiftly from advocates of “a woman’s right to choose.” Nearly all pro-abortion voices sang the same note—that Trump pardoned people who used force and violence to block access to “reproductive rights.” On the very day of the pardons, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America issued the following press statement:
Yet again Donald Trump has pardoned convicted criminals—this time nearly two dozen individuals who have used violence to either harass, intimidate, or even prevent people from getting essential health care, including at Planned Parenthood health centers. Not even a week into his presidency, Donald Trump has disregarded the law and greenlit violence against abortion providers, all at the expense of people who wish to live in peace and safely exercise the right to control their own bodies and health…We stand firm against those who want to use violence to intimidate Planned Parenthood staff, patients, and supporters.
Of course, it would never occur to Planned Parenthood that abortion is hardly peaceful and safe for the unborn attacked and killed in their abortion facilities.
Dripping with near hysteria, MS. magazine opined:
Twenty-three antiabortion extremists convicted of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE Act) were pardoned by President Donald Trump on Thursday. The pardons place extremists responsible for invading and blockading reproductive healthcare clinics in dozens of states back on the street, inviting more violence and chaos against patients and abortion providers…
While right-wing extremists refer to these criminal defendants as ‘peaceful pro-life Americans…deserving of full and unconditional pardons,’ abortion advocates know them for their history as leaders of campaigns of terror and for orchestrating dangerous invasions of healthcare clinics in dozens of states. The 23 individuals whom Trump pardoned on Thursday had previously been convicted in historic federal prosecutions. The pardons benefit defendants of dangerous clinic invasions.
Responding to a post on Politico regarding the Trump pardons, New York Attorney General Leticia James posted this on Instagram: “Using intimidation or violence to block access to abortion care in New York will result in legal consequences. We’ve sued an anti-abortion group for invading reproductive clinics in our state, and I will keep protecting New Yorkers’ reproductive rights.”
Red Rose Rescue is the “anti-abortion group” currently being sued by James. So, while the Department of Justice under Trump announced it will no longer use the FACE Act against pro-lifers except in “extraordinary circumstances” or in cases presenting “significant aggravating factors,” James assures that she will throw the full force of her office, under the New York state FACE law, against anyone who dares block “abortion care”—an oxymoron if ever there was one! At least when the Nazis exterminated the Jews they didn’t cloak the violence by calling it “Gas chamber care.”
And, of course, The New York Times couldn’t help but weigh in with a January 25 op-ed penned by columnist Michelle Goldberg titled “Under Trump, a Wink and a Nod at Anti-Abortion Violence.” Sticking with the theme that pro-life rescuers terrorize women and engage in violence to block access to “abortion care,” she focused on incidents that occurred during the October 22, 2020, rescue at Santangelo’s abortion facility. According to her, “a group of activists shoved their way into the waiting room of the Washington Surgi-Clinic. A nurse sprained her ankle while struggling unsuccessfully to hold the door shut against one of them,” and
One patient, who’d traveled from Ohio to end her pregnancy after finding out that her fetus had a grave and almost certainly fatal abnormality, had already taken a labor-inducing drug that’s sometimes used in later abortions. She and her husband pleaded with the activists to let them in. Then she collapsed in pain in front of them.
As someone who spent hours in the Kollar-Kotelly court—I watched all of the security camera videos of what actually occurred during this rescue, some of them several times over—I am in a position to set the record straight. Frankly, the violence was all on the side of the abortion center staff members who were alerted that pro-lifers were about to enter their facility due to security cameras mounted in the hallway outside the facility. Video from inside the waiting room clearly shows the nurse and the abortion center manager emerging from the backroom, the manager brandishing a broom handle. She and the nurse charged the door, and when three pro-lifers attempted to enter the facility, the manager began to strike and jab the pro-lifers with the broom handle in an attempt to force them back.
Yes, seeking to keep the pro-lifers out, the nurse sprained her ankle “while struggling” to keep the door shut, but in a melee clinic staff initiated. It is interesting to note that this witness for the prosecution presented no medical records, no doctor’s report that she ever sought or obtained medical attention for the sprained ankle. In any case, the pro-lifers never intended to cause anyone any injury, while the clinic staff deliberately used acts of aggression and violence against the pro-lifers.
As for the woman who collapsed, during the trial the woman testified that she and her husband aborted their “very much wanted” unborn child due to congenital abnormalities, an unborn child who most likely would have died naturally soon after birth. She and her husband had returned to Santangelo’s abortion center to deliver a dead baby who was killed by a shot of digoxin the day before. Videos show that the woman, experiencing labor pains, was physically distressed. The pro-lifers tried to counsel the couple and urged them to call 911, as Santangelo was not even present at his abortion center to help her. As the pro-lifers did not have their own cell phones, one of them, Will Goodman, entered the waiting room and urged the center staff to call 911—but they refused, as did the couple themselves.
Video also clearly shows Goodman going back into the clinic. Seconds later, rescuer Jean Marshall, who is a registered nurse, emerges and walks over to the woman in the hallway who is now collapsed on the floor in a sitting position. The video shows Jean stroking the woman’s face in a gesture of compassion and placing her hand on the woman’s upper thigh. Far from violence toward this woman, the pro-lifer showed her true concern. Incredibly, DOJ prosecutor Sanjay Patel deliberately distorted Marshall’s gestures toward the woman—accusing her of pushing the woman down. Moreover, security video shows the couple eventually entering the facility, even though Santangelo still had not arrived to care for her.
While the advocates of abortion are quick to accuse pro-life rescuers of violence, they fail to acknowledge the true violence—namely, the violence of abortion itself. Abortion is an attack on the most helpless, vulnerable, and voiceless human beings on earth. As someone who has taken literally thousands of aborted children out of abortion center trash containers, I know the horror firsthand. I have seen, held, photographed, and buried their crushed, mangled, and dismembered bodies. On March 25, 2022, Terrisa Bukovinac and Lauren Handy, who helped organize the 2020 D.C. rescue, stood outside the building where Santangelo’s abortion center is located on the second floor. A medical waste truck showed up, the driver got out pushing a dolly, entered the building, and returned with boxes he had just retrieved from the abortion center. Suspecting that the cartons most likely contained the remains of aborted babies, they asked the driver if he would turn the boxes over to them. And he did.
Upon opening them, they found one hundred and fifteen of Santangelo’s victims. One hundred and ten of them were killed in the first trimester. And then there were the five plastic tubs sealed with lids. Prying them open, the women came literally face-to-face with the large corpses of five babies very possibly killed in the third trimester. The open eye of one baby girl, whom they named Harriet, blankly stares back at whoever dares look at her. Certainly, the man who killed her saw the open eye of his murder victim and, too, whoever it was who stuffed her dead, mangled body into her plastic cradle. The one hundred and ten first-trimester victims were buried by a Catholic priest in a friend’s private Virginia cemetery. But Bukovinac and Handy suspected that “The Five” as they have come to be known, may have been killed in illegal abortion procedures, thus their bodies were turned over to the Washington, D.C., Medical Examiner’s Office for examination.
And so, nearly three years later, The Five remain un-autopsied and unburied—still awaiting their fate in a dark, cold storage vault. And the pro-lifers who know about them still wait in hope that justice someday will be done. With the election of Trump, the hope may not be in vain.
The twenty-three pardoned pro-lifers have now all returned to their family and friends filled with joy, gratitude; confident that at least while Trump is in office, pro-lifers who defend the unborn will not be hauled off to federal prison. But they all feel the injustice of abortion very keenly, oddly, perhaps now even more so. As they are all free, they know that the unborn, as a victim class, are not. Will Goodman, after being imprisoned for five-hundred days, stated,
It is a travesty that our pre-born sisters and brothers continue to face the death penalty every day. The injustice they suffer daily is far, far greater than any injustice we have endured. For the victims of abortion there is no reprieve, there is no release—there is no pardon for them.
Ping
face act needs to be repealed.
And now we know that the media who attacked these good people were paid to do so buy the thieves at USAID.
Remember, that it was Merrick Garland that the Dim's wanted to have seated on an opening on the Supreme Court.
We dodged a bullet on that one !
Talk about bias ...
Had she self identified as a black lesbian liberal blm person, the judge would have dismissed the case
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