“Over 100 Texas Children Forced to Leave the State for Abortion”, Jan 28, 2025, Jessica Valenti, Abortion, Every Day, at < https://jessica.substack.com/
“ 'God Demands Justice': The GOP's Chilling Plan to Attack Clinics: Clinic harassment has always been bad. It's about to get worse”, , Jan 27, 2025, Jessica Valenti, Abortion, Every Day, aqat < https://jessica.substack.com/p/god-demands-justice-the-gops-chilling >.
“Trump Effectively Greenlights Anti-Abortion Violence: Things are getting very bad, very quickly”, Jan 27, 2025, Kylie Cheung, Jezebel, < https://www.jezebel.com/trump-effectively-greenlights-anti-abortion-violence >.
“Trump pardons anti-abortion activists who blockaded clinic entrances”, Jan 27, 2025, Christine Fernando, AP, at < https://apnews.com/article/abortion-trump-executive-order-pardon-817774b21d32a4edf6d39ee43cbc18f4?taid=6792b892b4808000017d8f9a&utm_campaign=TrueAnthem&utm_medium=AP&utm_source=Twitter >.
Introduction by dmorista: While the Trump Regime is actively attacking the rights and well-being of Americans in several areas, they seem to be making it easier for private reactionary and fascist forced-pregnancy / forced-birth movements to attack women and healthcare providers. But the situation is quickly growing ever more dire.
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Over 100 Texas Children Forced to Leave the State for Abortion
Read or click to skip ahead “Equal Protection” looks at new fetal personhood legislation and reminds you about the mainstreaming of abortion ‘abolitionists.’
In the States, Over 100 Texas children had to leave the state for abortion care, six of whom were 11 years old and under. North Dakota’s ban is blocked while a legal challenge makes its way through the courts. And in Wyoming, Republicans are throwing everything they can at the wall to restrict abortion rights.
What Conservatives Are Saying reminds us that Republicans want Americans to believe they voted for this post-Roe nightmare.
Mic Check reports that the Republican candidate for Wisconsin Supreme Court was caught on tape admitting he supports banning abortion.
In the Nation, Trump illegally froze federal funding and shut down Medicaid portals. More on Trump’s pick for budget director, who was a Project 2025 contributor. And a look at where Trump might land on the anti-abortion movement’s wishlist.
Keep An Eye On Students for Life’s latest campaign to humiliate abortion patients.
You Love to See It gives props where props are due.
“Equal Protection”
We knew this was coming: After pledging to “leave abortions to the states,” more than five dozen House Republicans have sponsored a total abortion ban. Introduced by Rep. Eric Burlison, the Life at Conception Act (HR. 722) is a fetal personhood bill that declares that fetuses, embryos and fertilized eggs are full humans under the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.
What’s more, it invokes and centers “equal protection”—a term that’s become Republican code for charging abortion patients with murder. So yes, it’s bad.
That said, I want to make clear that there’s no indication that this bill will pass. (At least not yet.) While I do think that the GOP will push national abortion restrictions, I don’t believe they’ll be putting all their political weight behind legislation this radical. Not when Americans are so pissed off about abortion bans. It’s much more likely that they’ll work to pass a 12- or 15-week ban, which—of course—they’ll call a ‘restriction.’
This doesn’t mean HR 722 isn’t dangerous! It is. The bill is part of a broader move that I warned about in my 2025 predictions: The mainstreaming of so-called abortion ‘abolitionists’ who want the law to treat abortion patients as murderers. These mostly-male extremists are a truly scary bunch—and their mission is gaining steam.
Just a few weeks ago, I reported that four states are considering bills that would charge women who have abortions with murder; three of those states have the death penalty. Those bills were lobbied for and drafted by these ‘abolitionists’—and we can plan to see more like them in other states.
Because they know their beliefs are deeply unpopular, these activists try to hide what they’re doing—in large part through the language of ‘equal protection.’ The term doesn’t just serve them legally, establishing fetal personhood, but gives their backwards values a progressive sheen. After all, who doesn’t like ‘equality’!
And again, they’re gaining rapid power: ‘Equal protection,’ shorthand for calling for legislation that would charge abortion patients with homicide, is used in Texas’ GOP platform and dozens of lawmakers have sponsored bills using the language in states like South Carolina.
I’ll keep you updated on HR 722 as it advances or dies. But it’s vital that we’re paying close attention to not just bills, but language.
In the States
Well, this is just devastating: Taylor Goldenstein at the Houston Chronicle reports that at least six children 11 years old and under were forced to leave Texas for abortion care in 2023. In fact, the state’s most recent abortion statistics show that in the year after Roe was overturned, over 100 children had to travel for care.
What’s more, the Texas Health and Human Services department originally indicated that this data was just from the first half of 2023. It was only after the Houston Chronicle published their story that a spokesperson reached out to say they were actually for the entire year. A bit sketch! Either way, the numbers are likely an undercount.
And as Democratic Texas Rep. Mihaela Plesa told Goldenstein, “These are not just statistics.” She says, “These are real stories about people who are having these traumatic experiences.”
As you know, Texas has no exceptions for rape or incest; that means children who’ve been assaulted and impregnated don’t have the choice to stay close to home while getting the help they need.
The truth is that I’m surprised we’re not seeing more local reporting like this. We know these stories are out there, we know how important they are, and we know that Republicans are desperate to avoid them. Remember when the news broke that an Ohio 10 year-old had to travel for Indiana for an abortion? Republicans across the country rushed to call the account false because they knew how deeply it would affect voters.
We can’t let them run from this. So if you’re a local reporter, consider looking at your state’s abortion statistics and raising the alarm.
Some good news in North Dakota, where the state’s ban won’t be enforced while a legal challenge makes its way through the courts. You may remember that a judge struck down the ban back in September in a pretty epic ruling. From Judge Bruce Romanick:
“The reality is that ‘individuals’ did not draft and enact the North Dakota Constitution. Men did. And many, if not all, of the men who enacted the North Dakota Constitution, and who wrote the state laws of the time, did not view women as equal citizens with equal liberty interests.”
The state wanted the ban to be enforced pending appeal; but the North Dakota Supreme Court declined their request this past Friday. The downside, of course, is that there aren’t any abortion providers in the state right now—just because abortion is legal doesn’t mean it’s accessible. But it’s still a win, and I’m sure a weight off the shoulders of those seeking out care.
In the meantime, Wyoming Republicans are pushing legislation that would force women seeking abortion medication to get a medically unnecessary ultrasound. The bill’s sponsor says that the requirement is about protecting women’s health, yet offered this whopper of a statement: “Abortion is not healthcare, it’s death care.”
Why would anyone need an ultrasound for ‘death care’??
As the ACLU of Wyoming points out, this restriction is a response to a judge’s ruling that struck down the state’s abortion ban; they’re simply trying to make abortion impossible to get anyway.
Tired of trying to talk about abortion on Facebook and X? Want to join a vibrant feminist community without the constant hum of assholes in background? Upgrading your subscription gives you access to the conversation in comments, live chats, and exclusive video live-streams with prochoice leaders:
What Conservatives Are Saying
Knowing full well how unpopular abortion bans are, Republicans have spent months pushing out talking points that insist voters wanted this post-Roe nightmare. (See: ‘consensus,’ ‘the will of the people.’)
Now, despite clear polling and ballot measure wins, the GOP is claiming that Trump’s election is proof that Americans are anti-abortion. At the Iowa Rally for Life this weekend, for example, Gov. Kim Reynolds said “abortion extremism was just resoundingly defeated in the presidential race and in Iowa.”
The truth? 60% of Iowa voters want abortion to be legal and 81% of Americans don’t want the government involved in abortion at all.
They’re going to be repeating this lie quite a lot—especially as more horror stories come out—so we should all be prepared to push back with the facts.
Mic Check
The Republican candidate for Wisconsin’s Supreme Court was caught on tape admitting that he’s already made up his mind on abortion. You can probably guess where he comes down.
Before we get into what he said, a refresher: There’s an 1849 law in Wisconsin that Republicans say bans abortion. When Roe was overturned, they enforced this law—created before women had the right to vote—as a total ban. But in 2023, a judge ruled that the law isn’t actually an abortion ban at all—but “a feticide statute only.” (Meaning it only applies to an attack on a pregnant person that ends the pregnancy, not abortion.)
That ruling opened the door for clinics to provide care again, but anti-abortion groups continue to claim the law is a total ban. Now that legal fight is in front of the state Supreme Court. So you can see why the make up of the court is so important!
That leads us to the Republican running for a seat on the bench, Brad Schimel, Wisconsin’s former attorney general. According to The New York Times, Schimel told the audience at a recent campaign stop that he supports that 1849 law as an abortion ban:
“They’ve got several issues in front of them. One is the 1849 ban on abortions, which, by the way—what is flawed about that law?”
At another stop, Schimel said, “There is not a constitutional right to abortion in our State Constitution. That will be a sham if they find that.”
When contacted by the Times about the comments, Schimel’s spokesperson said the judge would “not prejudge any case” and would “enforce and respect the will of the voters.” (Didn’t we just talk about that line?)
I’ll keep you updated on this one, but in the meantime, a side gripe: Why was the incredibly important scoop about the leaked audio not mentioned until the thirty-first paragraph in the Times piece?
In the Nation
Just your regular reminder that this is not normal. As you’ve likely seen by now, the Trump administration illegally and recklessly froze trillions in federal funding—a move that also took down Medicaid payment portals.
Trump’s spokesperson said the portal would be back up and that the funding freeze wouldn’t impact Medicaid, but 1) Who the fuck believes anything they say? And 2) That still means that money for things like education programs and health research are being held hostage.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez blasted the GOP on Twitter, pointing out that the move wasn’t just Trump’s: “Republican majorities in the House and the Senate are backing this illegal sabotage.”
And while I can’t believe she had to write this at all, AOC also pointed out that “41% of all births in the US are covered by Medicaid.” For a party that says they’re ‘pro-life,’ what exactly do they think will happen to all those pregnant people and their babies if they can’t access Medicaid coverage?
In response to this not-at-all normal illegal action, Democratic Senators called on Republicans to hold off on advancing the confirmation of Russ Vought, Trump’s pick for White House budget director. Sen. Patty Murray, who sits on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said, “Republicans should not advance that nomination, out of committee, until the Trump administration follows the law."
In case you need a reminder: Vought is the guy who rewrote the GOP platform’s abortion plank, sneaking in even more extremist language. Called “Trump’s most pro-life cabinet member,” by radical anti-abortion group Students for Life, Vought was also a key author to Project 2025.
Last week, he was grilled by Sen. Murray on his anti-abortion views—including the fact that he calls for the “abolition” of abortion. (There’s that word again! I really am going to have to create an anti-abortion glossary.)
“Nodding to fetal personhood may be a way for Trump to get anti-abortion leaders off his back without taking the kind of dramatic action that would be unpopular or even cost the GOP in the 2026 midterm.” - Mary Ziegler, MSNBC
The anti-abortion movement has a long wishlist for the Trump administration. Whether it’s a national ban, outlawing the mailing of abortion medication, or even preventing Medicaid patients from getting pap smears at Planned Parenthood—anti-abortion activists and lawmakers have an aggressive policy plan for the next four years. And while they’re pleased as punch with Trump’s gift of free reign outside of clinics, that will only tide them over for so long.
Last week, a group of thirty anti-abortion activists and organizations—everyone from Live Action and AAPLOG to Americans United for Life—sent letters to the heads of the FDA and DOJ demanding action on abortion medication.
In their letter to acting Attorney General James McHenry, the groups called on the AG to use the Comstock Act to ban the mailing of abortion medication. The letter cited some of the nonsense talking points and fake studies we’ve tracked here, like claims that shipping abortion medication enables domestic abusers and that the medication is unsafe.
The activists made the same false claims in their letter to the FDA, where they demanded that the agency revert to pre-2016 restrictions on mifepristone. That would mean that the drug would only be approved up to 7 weeks of pregnancy instead of 10 weeks, and that patients would be required to see a provider in-person (a way for them to quash abortion medication by mail).
It’s still unclear what the Trump will do next—though most political journalists believe he’s trying to steer clear of backlash, knowing that most Americans support abortion rights. In a piece on “Trump’s careful abortion calculus,” The New York Times notes that his moves last week to give extremists the green light to attack clinics “were nothing like the shock-and-awe approach Trump took to immigration or D.E.I..”
I think it’s right that he’s trying to avoid anything too splashy at the moment, but I’m not holding out long-term hope. After all, he’s basically been checking off Project 2025 directives for the past week—like the global gag rule and the Hyde amendment.
The most recent evidence that the Trump administration is going down their Project 2025 checklist comes from the Department of Health and Human Services, which announced yesterday that they’re going to “strengthen enforcement” of “conscience” rules. In plain language? They’re going to make it easier for doctors, hospitals, pharmacists, etc to deny women abortions and birth control, or to turn away LGBTQ patients. Vile.
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"God Demands Justice": The GOP's Chilling Plan to Attack Clinics
Picture this: violent anti-abortion protesters swarming every clinic in every state. They’re no longer required to stay a hundred feet from the entrance, and nothing stops them from blocking patients trying to get inside. The screaming and terrorizing we’ve witnessed for years now happens inches from patients’ faces. When protesters are arrested, they file First Amendment lawsuits—and they win.
Right now, America is on the brink of a new era of extreme anti-abortion violence, one where radicals can terrorize women and doctors unchecked. This kind of dangerous free reign is right around the corner—not just in states with bans, but everywhere. And it’s been gift-wrapped by men who campaigned as abortion ‘moderates.’
On Thursday, Donald Trump pardoned nearly two dozen extremists convicted of attacking abortion clinics across the country. The activists, who our felon president called “peaceful” and “elderly,” forced their way into clinics, terrorized patients, and blocked them from entering the building for care. In Michigan, that included a woman whose pregnancy had just been diagnosed with a fatal abnormality and whose health was at risk. In DC, a patient was forced to climb through a window to access the building, while ‘pro-life’ activists refused to let another woman see a doctor even after she collapsed in pain.
And the protesters that Republicans depict as praying grannies? One told a Manhattan clinic “we’re gonna terrorize you so good,” and crushed a staff member’s hand in a door. Another was found with a half a dozen fetuses hidden in her home.
What Trump offered last week weren’t just pardons, they were permission.
In fact, both Trump and JD Vance promised at the March for Life that anyone who harasses patients or attacks clinics will “never have the government go after them ever again.” Vance told the crowd, “We stand with you.”
That’s not a symbolic gesture or empty promise: Abortion, Every Day has discovered that on the very same morning of the march, more than thirty Republican legislators held a private meeting with anti-abortion activists where they pledged to repeal the FACE Act—the federal law that prohibits blocking or doing violence to a reproductive health clinic.
At that event, U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs made their intent chillingly clear: “God demands justice,” he said.
Meanwhile, as Republicans advance legislation to undo the FACE Act, the Department of Justice announced that they won’t enforce it anyway. Not unless there are “extraordinary circumstances...such as death.”
In other words, anti-abortion activists can do anything they want short of murder.
It’s not a coincidence that this is all happening Trump’s first week in office. With the anti-abortion movement eager to roll out a slate of deeply unpopular restrictions, giving extremists the green light to attack patients and providers without fear of arrest is, at least in part, a way to buy the administration time and goodwill.
But let’s be real: Trump has always loved emboldening bullies and inciting violence. This is the same man still pushing ‘post-birth’ abortion lie, fully aware it puts providers’ lives at risk. He thrives on this shit.
It’s not just the legislative and executive branches driving this effort. Behind the scenes, the country’s most powerful conservative legal groups are working to overturn Hill v. Colorado—the Supreme Court decision that established abortion clinic buffer zones. These rules require anti-abortion protesters to stay a safe distance from clinic property, protecting patients and staff from harassment and violence. For years, I’ve tracked lawsuit after lawsuit from these groups, all arguing that stopping close-range harassment somehow violates ‘free speech.’ (Translation: they believe they have a constitutional right to scream in women’s faces, calling them sluts and murderers.)
If SCOTUS decides to take up one of these cases, the national implications would be massive. Because remember, since Roe was overturned, threats and violence against clinics and providers have skyrocketed. Stalking and burglaries are up more than 200%, arson has doubled, and providers are regularly doxxed and threatened with death. In just the last three years, we’ve seen clinics burned to the ground and maniacs drive cars into them. That’s to say nothing of the trauma inflicted on patients simply trying to access care.
Now imagine what would happen if clinics weren’t protected by buffer zones, and if the extremists outside of them had no fear of consequence.
That, of course, is the point. Cloaked in the guise of ‘free speech’ and religious freedom, anti-abortion legislators and activists want to create a country where getting an abortion is an exercise in terror. They want women to feel humiliated, ashamed and afraid—especially right now.
Anti-abortion groups are furious that the abortion rate hasn’t dropped. In fact, abortions have increased since Roe fell. That women have been able to get care in spite of state bans absolutely enrages them. After all, they didn’t spend decades working to ban abortion just to let women go unpunished!
In truth, these people don’t oppose abortion as much as they do women making their own choices without guilt, shame or punishment. That’s why they’re so desperate to get rid of abortion pills. It’s not just that the pills let women have abortions—it’s that they let them do it without running a gauntlet of screaming protesters outside a clinic. How dare they end their pregnancies at home in peace?
That’s why I don’t buy the reports that abortion groups are disappointed with Trump and Vance for not (yet) rolling back access to abortion pills or invoking the Comstock Act. For a movement hellbent on punishment, what Trump and Republican legislators are offering is still significant: it’s more than a policy promise—it’s a way to satisfy their visceral itch for punishment.
They may not be able to stop every woman from getting an abortion, but they can make it as miserable as possible for those who do.
And that’s Trump’s real gift to the anti-abortion movement: The ability to take their anger out on patients and terrorize anyone who dares to break their rules.
Radical anti-abortion groups are at the ready. At the Students for Life summit this past weekend, president Kristan Hawkins cheered the Department of Justice’s announcement to end FACE Act prosecutions and called on activists to “revive community pro-life activism…in front of the abortion facilities.” (This is the same group that wants to force women who self-manage their abortions to bag their blood and deliver it to doctors as “medical waste.” Shame and humiliation aren’t just tactics—they’re the point.)
What comes next is worrying. Without clinic protections, there will be an unprecedented emboldening of extremist protesters. It’s also likely that we’ll see an influx of even more extremists in pro-choice states: With abortion fully banned in ultra-conservative areas, those who have the ability to take their sideshow on the road will do just that.
If and when the Trump administration does roll back access to abortion medication—whether through the Comstock Act, or FDA rules—more patients will be forced to seek care at clinics. And wherever patients go, more protesters will follow.
That means clinic escorts and defenders will need our support more than ever, along with providers and abortion funds. But we’ll need to do more than the logistical work of ensuring people can get care—we have to make it clear, again and again, that everyone has the right to seek an abortion without fear, shame, or harassment from assholes.
Because the anti-abortion movement isn’t just waging a war on access and safety—but our dignity. And that’s a fight I’m ready to take to the streets.
For more information on clinic violence, check out the National Abortion Federation, the Southern Poverty Law Center here and here.
Trump Effectively Greenlights Anti-Abortion Violence
Things are getting very bad, very quickly.
It was never a secret what Donald Trump and his cabinet of deranged, pro-forced birth advisers would do once elected: continue to restrict abortion rights and inevitably put pregnant people and health providers in even greater danger.
At the end of last week, likely hoping his actions would go unnoticed, Trump pardoned 23 anti-abortion activists who were convicted for not only illegally barricading abortion clinics, but in some cases, violently attacking patients and clinic staff, as well as stealing aborted embryos and fetal tissue. In a statement shared with Jezebel, Center for Reproductive Rights President Nancy Northrup called the pardons a “get-out-of-jail-free card inviting anti-abortion extremists to step up their attacks on reproductive health clinics with impunity.”
Among the pardoned are anti-abortion leader Lauren Handy, and her co-defendants, who, in May, were sentenced to about five years in prison for invading a Washington, D.C., clinic in 2020. Handy also famously stole five aborted fetuses from an abortion clinic in 2022 and illegally kept them in her home; this was part of a broader scheme to have photos of the fetuses submitted into evidence during her trial in order to create a highly inflammatory spectacle that would further malign abortion clinics, and likely mobilize even more violent protesters. While invading the D.C. clinic in 2020, one of Handy’s co-defendants assaulted a nurse who then sprained her ankle; another knocked a woman experiencing labor pains to the floor and then blocked her from entering the clinic.
Despite these actions, Trump declared on Thursday that Handy and her co-defendants “should not have been prosecuted” and praised them for being “peaceful pro-life protesters.” He pardoned all of them: Jonathan Darnel of Virginia; Jay Smith, John Hinshaw, and William Goodman, all of New York; Joan Bell of New Jersey; Paulette Harlow and Jean Marshall, both of Massachusetts; Heather Idoni of Michigan; and Herb Geraghty of Pennsylvania. Trump also pardoned 13 others who were convicted on federal charges of using physical force to block access to clinics. Additionally, many of the Jan. 6 insurrectionists who also received pardons last week were known in their communities for harassing abortion clinics.
At the same time that Trump issued these pardons, his Department of Justice announced it would now limit enforcement of the FACE Act (Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances), a law that was enacted in the 1990s to prohibit anti-abortion protesters from blocking entry to abortion clinics. The law was signed by former President Bill Clinton in 1994 in response to years of extreme violence and obstruction from protesters, including the murder of Dr. David Gunn in 1993.
According to the new directive from the attorney general’s office, prosecutors are only to enforce the FACE Act in “extraordinary circumstances,” such as in incidents involving death, extreme bodily harm, or significant property damage, CBS News reports. So, short of health providers being killed or almost killed, or their clinics razed to the ground, the federal government now seems to advise that prosecutors look the other way; frankly, even if providers are killed or their clinics subjected to arson down the line, who’s to say the Trump administration won’t come up with some reason to insist no action be taken? As Slate put it, Trump has effectively declared “open season” on abortion providers.
Biden’s DOJ played a decently active role in enforcing the FACE Act, but now, Trump’s DOJ states that FACE Act violations will primarily be left to state and local law enforcement: “Until further notice, no new abortion-related FACE Act actions—criminal or civil—will be permitted without authorization from the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division,” the attorney general’s office wrote to prosecutors.
In June, Trump referenced some of the convicted anti-abortion activists and promised to free them: “Many people are in jail over this… We’re going to get that taken care of immediately.” So, this isn’t surprising, but it’s telling that these pardons were such a high priority for this administration. Trump and his team clearly aim to glorify anti-abortion extremists and signal to others that they can take whatever action they see fit against clinics and be protected by the president. Anti-abortion extremist groups have since heaped praise on the president, thanking Trump for “immediately delivering on his promise” and declaring that “freedom rings in our great nation.”
The National Abortion Federation (NAF), which tracks violence against abortion providers across the country, said the pardons are “disturbing and concerning for the safety of abortion providers and their patients.” The organization believes Trump’s reelection itself is “very likely” to “embolden anti-abortion extremists to further harass, threaten, and target providers who are just trying to provide patients with care.”
In 2023, NAF reported that, in the year Roe was overturned, they saw a 538% increase in people obstructing clinic entrances (from 45 in 2021 to 287 in 2022); a 913% increase in stalking of clinic staff (from 8 in 2021 to 81 in 22); and a 144% increase in bomb threats. “Even with this law in place, anti-abortion activists have threatened to kill providers, have bombed their clinics, and have harassed their patients,” Northrup said. “With these pardons, President Trump has left patients and providers to fend for themselves against those who will go to extremes to stop women from accessing healthcare.”
Trump’s war on clinics is just one part of the equation. Within hours of taking office, his administration appeared to scrub reproductiverights.gov as well as any vaguely helpful “abortion” search results from the Health and Human Services Department’s website. One of Trump’s first executive orders was re-signing the global gag rule on Friday, to block all aid for global organizations that even discuss abortion, which will shutter family planning services for millions across the world. Trump also signed an executive order to reverse previous Biden directives that called on hospitals in abortion-banned states to follow federal law and provide emergency, stabilizing abortions even if this was at odds with state abortion bans. This order comes on the heels of the first five confirmed reports of deaths caused by anti-abortion laws at the end of last year; it will inevitably contribute to the long-festering maternal mortality crises in abortion-banned states.
Also on Friday, top anti-abortion leaders who hold massive influence in Trump’s orbit wrote to the DOJ and explicitly asked the administration to enforce the Comstock Act of 1873 to ban the mailing of abortion pills. This could mark the first step toward a major, terrifying move that legal experts have spent the past year warning about: a federal ban on medication abortion.
It’s almost as if a step-by-step plan—maybe even a 900-page plan, perhaps a project for the year 2025!—was already pre-written to empower the Trump presidency to dismantle our rights with ruthless efficiency starting day one. Who would have thought!
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Trump pardons anti-abortion activists who blockaded clinic entrances
CHICAGO (AP) — President Donald Trump announced Thursday he would pardon anti-abortion activists convicted of blockading abortion clinic entrances.
Trump called it “a great honor to sign this.”
“They should not have been prosecuted,” he said as he signed pardons for “peaceful pro-life protesters.”
The people pardoned were involved in the October 2020 invasion and blockade of a Washington clinic.
Lauren Handy was sentenced to nearly five years in prison for leading the blockade by directing blockaders to link themselves together with locks and chains to block the clinic’s doors. A nurse sprained her ankle when one person pushed her while entering the clinic, and a woman was accosted by another blockader while having labor pains, prosecutors said. Police found five fetuses in Handy’s home after she was indicted.
Trump pardoned Handy and her nine co-defendants: Jonathan Darnel of Virginia; Jay Smith, John Hinshaw and William Goodman, all of New York; Joan Bell of New Jersey; Paulette Harlow and Jean Marshall, both of Massachusetts; Heather Idoni of Michigan; and Herb Geraghty of Pennsylvania.
In the first week of Trump’s presidency, anti-abortion advocates have ramped up calls for Trump to pardon protesters charged with violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, which is designed to protect abortion clinics from obstruction and threats. The 1994 law was passed during a time where clinic protests and blockades were on the rise, as was violence against abortion providers, such as the murder of Dr. David Gunn in 1993.
