After a stint in federal prison—where, in addition to separation from loved ones, some experienced violent surroundings, poor food and medical care, and limited access to religious services—twenty-three pardoned pro-life activists are not retreating from their mission. If anything, their experiences have strengthened their determination to rescue unborn children at risk of being killed, even though the law that put them in prison is still on the books.

The day before the annual March for Life in Washington, DC, newly inaugurated President Donald J. Trump signed an Executive Grant of Clemency for 23 people who were convicted of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act. The pardoned prolifers had participated in several “rescues” around the country, reviving a practice from the 1980s heyday of Operation Rescue. Rescues had mostly stopped after the 1994 enactment of FACE, which imposes stiff monetary penalties and prison time for those found guilty.

But Rescue seemed to be making a bit of a comeback during Trump’s first term. Will Goodman, who served time for his participation in an October 22, 2020, rescue at the Washington Surgi-Clinic in the nation’s capital, recalled being part of a discussion in 2017 about reviving the movement:

“A number of people suggested that the appropriate time to rescue is when a child is in danger. It’s not based on a political calculus, or even necessarily a calculus of how much time you’re looking at,” Goodman said in an interview with Human Life Review. “It’s a response in charity to a real human life in danger, and presenting a witness of Christ’s charity, his love, to the mother and father as well as the abortion staff, with the hope of not only saving lives but also saving souls.”

A new approach called Red Rose Rescue, where prolifers enter a clinic to counsel potential abortive mothers but don’t physically block anyone, was “seen as maybe a reasonable half-step in the right direction” to revive the Rescue Movement, said Jonathan Darnel, who spent 16 months in prison for his role in the Washington rescue. “But you trespass inside the abortion clinic until the police come and arrest you.”

Civil Rights

Some of the rescuers who were pardoned by President Trump were accused of going further than that: According to the Justice Department, the rescuers at the Washington Surgi-Clinic “forcefully entered” the facility and “set about blockading two clinic doors using their bodies, furniture, chains, and ropes.”

“The evidence also showed that the defendants violated the FACE Act by using a physical obstruction to injure, intimidate, and interfere with the clinic’s employees and a patient, because they were providing or obtaining reproductive health services,” said the Justice Department.

Goodman said he was in the hallway outside the Washington Surgi-Clinic, which is on the fourth floor of an office building. He was counseling women who were waiting for an abortion and was “prepared to stand in front of the door where the staff enters When the abortionist would arrive, I would kneel down at the front door after trying to engage him in a dialogue to hopefully attempt to persuade him from harming the innocent,” he told HLR.

The rescuers also were charged with “conspiring against civil rights,” which many find ironic, as they were motivated by their desire to protect the rights of the most vulnerable and felt they were acting in the tradition of the American civil rights movements.

Joan Andrews Bell, who has a long history of pro-life activism and has spent much time in prison for similar activities, also rescued in DC. In an interview, she called FACE “a wrongful law.” She made the point that people often get arrested for nonviolent, peaceful demonstrations, “but the books are not thrown at you as if you’re a horrible criminal. You don’t do that to people if you’re going to have a free country. Our country has always stood up for the right to free speech and the right to protest.”

John Hinshaw, who turned 70 in prison, where he was serving time for his part in the DC rescue, attested that some of his fellow inmates, including those doing time for violent crimes, were “shocked that we’re put in jail for peaceful civil disobedience.”

One of the DC rescuers, Jean Marshall, denied that the rescue was violent. If anything, she said in an interview, it was rescuers who suffered violence. “I went into the waiting room, but I was full body-slam pushed into the hall,” Marshall said.

In addition to the nine arrested in Washington, seven people were convicted of obstructing the entrance to the Northland Family Planning Clinic in Sterling Heights, Michigan, in 2020. They included Eva Edl, 89, a survivor of a concentration camp in communist Yugoslavia.

Others receiving a presidential pardon included Bevelyn Beatty Williams, who had been sentenced to 41 months for charges relating to a two-day protest in 2020 outside a Planned Parenthood clinic in New York, and Franciscan Friars of the Renewal Fr. Fidelis Moscinski.

Faith Life in Prison

Many of the rescuers said that they “offered up” their confinement and whatever hardships they endured for the unborn. Joan Andrews Bell declined legal representation in court “in solidarity with” the unborn, who have no voice.

“Being in prison is part of the rescue,” said Marshall. “We are following Christ to Calvary We are following Jesus, who rescued us first.” Both Marshall and her sister, Paulette Harlow, who also rescued at the Surgi-Clinic that day, are in their mid-70s.

Some also regarded their sentence as a time of prayer and witness to others. “I tried to approach it as a retreat and looked at the prison as a monastery as well as a mission field,” said Goodman, who served 17 months of his 27-month sentence. “As rescuers, we look at prison as an extension of the rescue, not really a different thing. It’s the continuation of the same thing. We make that gift of self at the abortion center, and that gift continues through the arrest, through the trials, through prison.”

Convicted rescuers were placed in various facilities around the country, and their ability to exercise religious practices was mixed. Some had access to chaplains, others not. While Goodman could attend Sunday Mass at the two prisons he was in—in Alexandria, Virginia, and Danbury, Connecticut— Andrews Bell said that in the Federal Detention Center in Philadelphia, there was no priest, so Catholics had to pray with a missal on their own.

Due to serious health issues, Harlow served her sentence at home. Under “house arrest,” she was permitted to go out for shopping and doctor’s visits, but not for church. Priest friends did come to her home to celebrate Mass several times, but, she lamented, “that’s not the same as going to daily Mass.” While the ability to receive spiritual care was sometimes limited, inmates had opportunities to offer such care to others. Goodman, who turned 55 in prison, was part of what he called a “very fruitful Bible study,” which had as many as 20 men attending. He and the others would also pray the Liturgy of the Hours and the rosary.

“Some of the inmates really want to get their life together,” he said. “Some are struggling with addictions. Others realize they’ve made some really bad choices, and they want to get right with God.” Some of the men had girlfriends or wives who had had abortions. “They’re in mourning,” said Goodman, who was able to counsel some of them.

So was Lauren Handy, director of activism and mutual aid for the Progressive Anti-abortion Uprising. Handy was sentenced to nearly five years for her leading role in the Washington rescue. Serving her time in a federal prison in Tallahassee, Florida, she found “so many people who are truly the forgotten of the forgotten” and many who are experiencing “abortion grief.” “There are no materials or resources for them,” Handy said during a webinar sponsored by the Thomas More Society, which provided legal representation to her and other rescuers. At the time she was pardoned, she was on the verge of organizing abortion grief counseling groups. She is now looking for ways she can reach out to people who are incarcerated and experiencing abortion regret.

Does FACE Have a Future?

All the pardoned rescuers who were interviewed by HLR believe that FACE should be abolished or at least amended to apply only in cases of violence and significant property destruction. “As long as children are in danger, especially in the states that continue [abortion’s legality] through all nine months, Rescue is a legitimate and proportionate response to that emergency,” said Goodman.

Rescuers like Jonathan Darnel are frustrated that some people in the prolife movement believe the bad thing about the FACE Act is that its provision to prosecute vandals of crisis pregnancy centers is not being enforced.

“It’s absurd,” said Darnel. “What does the pro-choice side lose if the FACE Act is equally enforced? So some of them can’t go paint nasty words on the side of CPCs and throw little Molotov cocktails in there or whatever. That’s what they lose. Well, not too many people were doing that anyway. But their abortion business remains open.”

On the other hand, when FACE is enforced, he said, “it means nobody rescues. Nobody can defend children in a way that is commensurate with the dignity of those children. It turns us all into cowards again. And that’s what we lose. But mainstream prolifers didn’t seem to understand that.”

Darnel created a website, smashtheface.life, which reports news about efforts to abolish the law and includes an “action button” that leads to engagement with lawmakers. Said Darnel, “Abortion is a grievous evil that should be abolished and we have not just a right but a duty to interfere with it.”

Whether or not FACE is abolished, prolifers hope that the Trump administration at least refrains from enforcing it the way previous administrations have. If so, we could be seeing much more rescue activity in the coming months and years.

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Original Bio:

John Burger is a veteran Catholic journalist and author of At the Foot of the Cross: Lessons from Ukraine (Our Sunday Visitor, 2023).