US President Donald Trump has pardoned 23 pro-life activists who had been prosecuted, including some who been jailed for violating the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act under the Biden administration.
The action came on the eve of the annual March for Life in Washington DC, which Vice President JD Vance is due to speak at.
Signing the pardons in the Oval Office, Trump looked up from his desk to tell reporters: “They should not have been prosecuted. Many of them are elderly people.”
“This is a great honour to sign this.”
A Chicago-based law firm, the Thomas More Society, announced this month that it had submitted formal requests to pardon 21 pro-life protestors convicted under the FACE Act, a 1994 law that makes it a felony to “use threats or violence to interfere with reproductive health-care services.”
In their letter submitted to President Donald J. Trump, Thomas More Society attorneys urged “that these pro-life Americans are deserving of full and unconditional pardons.”
Those granted clemency included Bevelyn Williams, a Tennesse woman who was sentenced to 41 months in prison in July for violating the law. In addition to the prison term of more than three years, Williams, 33, was sentenced to two years of supervised release.
Williams was convicted after a nine-day jury trial of one count of violating the FACE Act before U.S. District Judge Jennifer L. Rochon, who imposed the sentence. The judge claimed that Williams had “repeatedly intimidated and interfered with individuals seeking and providing critical reproductive health services” “physically blocking access to clinics, threatening staff, and by force.”
However, Ms Williams, speaking after the sentence was handed down, said: “I was persecuted as a Christian standing for my beliefs when it comes to life.”
“This is devastating news. Not only is the bond extensive for the accused crime, but she [the judge] made it clear in the courtroom that she was going to make an example out of me.”
Ms Williams has spoken of how she founded a Christian ministry to reach out to other women after she herself had undergone two abortions in her past. Her husband slammed the “traumatic” separation of Ms Williams from himself and their two-year-old daughter leaving him a single father, saying: “This is due to the Biden Harris administration.”
“The Biden-Harris administration has separated me from my wife, and my wife from her daughter at two years old for unlawful assembly. My wife is facing three and a half years for unlawful assembly and federal time. It’s devastating for our family,” he said in a recent video urging people not to vote for Kamala Harris.
An emotional video posted to social media captured the young mother being reunited with her husband and toddler moments after her release.
Other activists freed under the pardon by the new U.S. president include Catholic priest, Fr Fidelis Moscinski, who placed locks on the entrance gate of a Long Island Planned Parenthood abortion facility in July 2022.
Lauren Handy, a Catholic activist who was sentenced to nearly five years in jail for leading a blockade of an abortion facility in Washington DC, is also among those freed from prison.
Prosecutions in the Washington case marked the first time that the Department of Justice charged pro-life activists under the FACE Act.
Those pardoned also include Joan Bell, Coleman Boyd, Joel Curry, Jonathan Darnel, Eva Edl, Chester Gallagher, William Goodman, Dennis Green, Paulette Harlow, John Hinshaw, Heather Idoni, Jean Marshall, Justin Phillips, Paul Place, Paul Vaughn, Calvin Zastrow, Eva Zastrow, and James Zastrow.
President Trump, before taking office for a second term, had publicity indicated his intent to pardon pro-life protestors convicted under the Biden administration.
In September 2023, shortly after the FACE Act convictions in Washington, D.C., Mr Trump vowed to review the “cases of every political prisoner who’s been unjustly persecuted by the Biden administration.” While in February 2024, in a speech to the National Religious Broadcasters in Tennessee, Mr Trump referenced the “pro-life activists… convicted on outrageous charges” in the Nashville FACE Act trial while saying he would review such convictions if he returned to office.
Last June, in a speech for the Faith and Freedom Coalition, he reiterated his earlier statements — mentioning in particular in his remarks 75-year-old Paulette Harlow, who has now been granted a full pardon.
“Above all, in the Republican Party, we will always support families, babies, life,” he said while pledging to issue the pardons on his “first day” in office.
“By contrast, Joe Biden is weaponizing the Justice Department to viciously persecute pro-life activists and Americans of faith,” he added. “Just last month, the Biden DOJ got Paula Harlow, a 75-year-old woman in poor health, sentenced to two years in prison for singing outside of a class.”
“Many people are in jail over this,” he told the conference, adding, ”We’re going to get that taken care of immediately.”
In a statement, a spokesperson for the Thomas More Society which represented the majority of protestors, said:
“Today, freedom rings in our great nation. The heroic peaceful pro-lifers unjustly imprisoned by Biden’s Justice Department will now be freed and able to return home to their families, eat a family meal, and enjoy the freedom that should have never been taken from them in the first place.
Peter Breen, Thomas More Society Executive Vice President and Head of Litigation, said it was a “new day” for pardoned protestors who “have suffered FBI raids, federal prosecutions, and severe punishment for peacefully and courageously witnessing for life.”
“We thank President Trump for keeping his promise to these pro-life mothers, fathers, grandparents, pastors, and priests. What happened to these peaceful pro-life individuals must never happen again. We urge Congress to act swiftly in repealing the FACE Act to make sure that the Justice Department can never again weaponize this law to target peaceful pro-lifers with severe charges.”
Trump has also ordered the declassification of files relating to the deaths of John F Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. The order, which has since set the internet abuzz, is the latest in a stream of executive orders Trump has signed in his first week in office.
“More than 50 years after the assassinations of President John F Kennedy, Senator Robert F Kennedy, and the Rev Dr Martin Luther King, Jr, the federal government has not released to the public all of its records related to those events,” the executive order stated.
“Their families and the American people deserve transparency and truth. It is in the national interest to finally release all records related to these assassinations without delay,” it added.
“Everything will be revealed,” Trump said as he put pen to paper.
“That’s a big one,” he declared as he signed the order with reporters looking on.