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I’m normally not one to peddle in outrage. But some stories are so heinous that righteous anger is the only appropriate response.
This is one of those stories.
Remember when the FBI went on a crusade against pro-life protesters last year? The Bureau sent men with guns and badges to arrest 11 American citizens and throw them in cages.
What was their offense? Terrorism? Robbery? Murder?
They were guilty of none of these things. Instead, they were arrested for protesting in front of an abortion clinic in 2020. Now, they are facing decades in prison for allegedly committing this crime.
On social media, video footage showed several instances of agents forcibly removing these people from their homes. In one instance, 25 to 30 armed agents raided the home of Mark Houck, founder and president of “The King’s Men,” a group that helps people heal from pornography addiction. The agents arrested him in front of his screaming wife and kids.
According to the report, Houck’s wife said the agents “had big, huge rifles pointed at Mark and pointed at me and kind of pointed throughout the house.” When asked if they had a warrant, the agents responded by saying “they were going to take him whether they had a warrant or not.”
Houck was arrested for shoving a man to the ground twice in front of a Planned Parenthood facility in Philadelphia. Houck’s wife said this occurred after the man got into their son’s face and started shouting obscenities. “Mark shoved him away from his child, and the guy fell back,” she recounted.
In another case, gun-toting FBI agents showed up at the home of Paul Vaughn for protesting in front of a Planned Parenthood building. His wife caught the arrest on video:
🚨 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
Both of these individuals are facing 11 years in prison.
Now, more of these individuals have been indicted and could be facing some overly harsh punishments for exercising their right to free speech.
“The Department of Justice (DOJ) is reaching back almost three years to charge eight pro-life activists who, by sitting and praying, blocked the door of an abortion facility in Sterling Heights, Michigan,” according to the Epoch Times. “Calvin Zastrow, Chester Gallagher, Heather Idoni, Caroline Davis, Joel Curry, Justin Phillips, Eva Edl, and Eva Zastrow each face up to 11 years in federal prison, if convicted.”
The report notes that the DOJ indictment accuses these pro-life activists of engaging in a conspiracy to stop women from terminating their pregnancies because they used social media to talk about standing “in between the hands of an abortionist that wants to murder these children and the life of these babies,” according to a video that one of the individuals live streamed.
They are also being charged with violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act which was passed in 1994 to disallow interference with people obtaining or performing abortions.
These individuals allegedly stopped a woman who was going to a facility “for a scheduled reproductive health care appointment,” the indictment read. Instead of obeying Sterling Heights police officers who told them to move, they allegedly “refused to move and instead engaged the officers in conversation as a delay tactic, and continued to block access.”
One of the protesters allegedly said, “[The] longer they talk with us, the better the opportunity we have to see women and children rescued. And that’s what obstructing the door of an abortion clinic is about and why it is so successful,” according to the indictment.
Idoni, 58, is already facing 22 years in federal prison for two instances in which she protested at abortion facilities. This latest indictment means she could now be facing up to 33 years, meaning she would likely die while imprisoned.
Sentences against pro-life protesters have risen under President Joe Biden. “In the 10 years between 2011 and 2021, the DOJ criminally charged 17 people with FACE Act violations, according to the agency’s website. In 2022 alone, the DOJ charged 26 people,” according to the Epoch Times.
Normally, violations of the FACE Act can carry up to a fine of $10,000 and six months in federal prison. A subsequent offense can impose up to $25,000 in fines and imprisonment for up to 18 months. But in the case of these individuals, they are looking at 11 years because the Justice Department has been adding conspiracy charges.
This should be an outrage regardless of where one stands on the abortion debate. The idea that people could lose over a decade of their lives for protesting in front of a clinic is reprehensible. It is nothing more than this pro-abortion administration using the power of the state to kidnap and imprison its political opposition. They are not only doing this to punish people who disagree with them on abortion, they are doing it to send a chilling message to other pro-lifers who exercise their First Amendment rights: Dissent will be punished harshly, Eighth Amendment be damned.
