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Hawley on the Pro-Lifers behind Bars: ‘The Abuse of the Law ... Has Just Got to Stop’

January 23, 2025

Update: President Trump signed the executive order pardoning the 23 Americans on Thursday afternoon. 

Under the Biden-Harris administration, 23 pro-life Americans were convicted for peacefully protesting against abortion under the Federal Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act and the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871. The pleas for their pardons have been strong and consistent. But now that President Donald Trump is back in the White House, the call for the pro-lifers’ release has finally been heard.  

The Thomas More Society (TMS), a prominent religious freedom organization in the country, formally petitioned President Trump to pardon the convicted pro-lifers. In a letter sent to Trump earlier this month, the group wrote, “These peaceful pro-life Americans mistreated by Biden include grandparents, pastors, a Holocaust survivor, and a Catholic priest — all are selfless, sincere patriots. … We respectfully urge that all ... of them detailed here are richly deserving of full and unconditional pardons.”

The Daily Wire reports that Trump plans to grant these pardons — “within days.” The outlet added, “The revelation comes a day ahead of the 52nd annual March for Life, a massive peaceful demonstration that takes place in Washington D.C. to bring awareness to the many babies whose lives are ended through abortions. The president is expected to appear at the rally in a pre-recorded video.”

Pro-life advocates are optimistic the rumors are true. As Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) shared on X Wednesday: “I hope President Trump will shortly pardon the pro-life prisoners unjustly targeted & jailed by the Biden Administration. They deserve to be free.” On Wednesday’s “Washington Watch,” Hawley, who’s been a leading voice in this effort, discussed the issue with Family Research Council President Tony Perkins.

“I’m hopeful that the president will act on this immediately,” Hawley stated. “I mean, these are people who are unjustly in prison. It’s not even that there are folks who made a mistake. … That’s not it. These are people who I believe committed no crime at all.” As the senator explained, “The First Amendment protects your right to pray in a public space. It protects your right to demonstrate in a public space. … [T]hese are people who were singled out by the last administration,” Hawley contended, “the most anti-Christian administration in our country’s history.”

He continued, “They were singled out to, frankly, be terrorized, using lawfare to make a point, to try to silence all the rest of us, to try to put everybody who’s a person of faith in fear of speaking out and exercising your faith and your freedoms in public. And so, these convictions are unjust. The application of the law to them in this way was unjust. And I hope the president will very soon pardon these folks and get them out of prison … [because] it’s just wrong.”

Perkins noted that “several of these pro-life activists are in their mid to late 70s.” And yet, despite their age, “they’ve received multi-year sentences for their protest. These are not people that engaged in any type of violent behavior. … [T]hey were simply exercising their First Amendment rights, which the FACE act has made criminal.” Perhaps “that’s actually the next step,” Perkins suggested, “to eliminate this federal law known as the FACE Act.”

“[W]hat is particularly grotesque about all of this,” Hawley emphasized, “is that in the same time period, while the Biden administration was going after and singling out these good Americans, these believing Christians, to try to make examples of them, churches were being literally firebombed.” He explained how “pregnancy care centers were being attacked, their workers were being harassed, their places of work were vandalized [and] burned. And what did the Biden administration do about that? Nothing. Not a thing.” It all points to this blatant “abuse of the law,” Hawley argued, and the FACE Act in particular has been repeatedly “used as a weapon of intimidation against believing Americans, particularly pro-life Christians. It has been used against them. It has been applied unequally, unfairly from day one. And this has just got to stop.”

Between Former President Joe Biden’s final pardons and Trump’s pardons of the January 6 protestors, Perkins stated how “we’re seeing … a radical change from administration to administration. It’s like we’ve lost a common ground of truth and decency in our country and fair application of the law.” As a result, “you’ve got Biden pardoning people. You’ve got Trump pardoning people. It’s like you have to wait for a president to get justice. That says there’s something wrong with our system.”

Hawley agreed. “It’s really worrisome,” and “it speaks to the loss of the rule of law, because … the whole point of the rule of law is [that] it’s blind as to the individual characteristics of a person.” As the senator explained, the law is not meant to single out anyone for being Christian or secular. “That is not what the law is supposed to do. It’s supposed to say, ‘Here is the rule. It’s neutral. We apply it fairly to everybody.’” But unfortunately, “that has not happened. And particularly in the last four years, we have seen the unequal, unfair application of the law like I never thought possible in this country.”

Moving forward, Hawley pointed out that “President Trump and his Justice Department now [have an opportunity] to reverse those injustices and … say, ‘We’re going to get back to just following the law. We’re going to put criminals behind bars, we’re going to protect law-abiding folks, and we’re going to stop this persecution of Christians and others who have the temerity to stand up and to challenge people in power.”

While that is “the first step,” Perkins stated, “it’s going to require more … to correct the injustices in the Justice Department.” In large part, he added, because “this is a whole of society problem in that we’ve got to raise our expectations of the rule of law, and we’ve got to live under the rule of law, and it begins with self-government, or our system doesn’t work.”

“[T]hat’s exactly correct,” Hawley asserted. “And we’ve got to get back to the place where we can expect that whoever is in power … is going to apply the laws evenly and fairly.” Americans shouldn’t have to “look to a president to say, ‘Well, gosh, if my guy doesn’t win, then I might really be in trouble.’ I mean, that’s not America. That’s not the rule of law.” And for Christians, Hawley urged that “we really ought to be the ones carrying the banner and say, ‘We need reform here. We need the fair rule of law.’”

Sarah Holliday is a reporter at The Washington Stand.



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