The FACE Act Weaponized (Part 1 of 3): Feds Now Targeting Those the Legislation Aimed to Protect
First part of a three-part series on how legislation meant to curtail anti-abortion violence is now being used as a political shot gun against abortion rights activists
( Wendi Kent ) — The Takeaway
A few weeks ago, the good news landed that five defendants from extremist anti-abortion organization Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising (PAAU) (one of which is the now infamous fetus corpse hoarder) earned a guilty conviction for physically blocking reproductive healthcare appointments at a DC clinic. Three more PAAU defendants were convicted a few weeks later.
Prosecutors were able to prove that the actions of these anti-abortion extremists violated the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE) Act, which “prohibits threats of force, obstruction and property damage intended to interfere with reproductive health care services,” according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
The statute creates federal jurisdiction and penalties for a person who:
1. By force or threat of force or by physical obstruction, intentionally injures, intimidates or interferes with or attempts to injure, intimidate or interfere with any person because that person is or has been, or in order to intimidate such person or any other person or any class of persons from, obtaining or providing reproductive health services;
2. Intentionally damages or destroys the property of a facility, or attempts to do so, because such facility provides reproductive health services.
Statutory definitions of key terminology like “interferes with” or “intimidate” have been further defined so as to avoid any vagueness.
The FACE Act has received new life in headlines lately due to increased violence following the erroneous Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade and 50 years of abortion rights protection in the U.S. — and subsequent right-wing posturing to overturn it.
Yep! You read that right: After having already harmed women by removing their right to choose what happens to their bodies, anti-abortion extremists and the Forced Birth Lobby now want to put an end to protections from their harassment and violence. As such, the “antis” are ramping up their lies and propaganda, downplaying what led to the passage of FACE Act legislation in the first place.
In this first part of my two-part series on the right-wing political weaponization of the FACE Act, let’s look at some important historical context.
History of anti-abortion violence in the U.S.
Reporting from the National Abortion Federation, the leading professional association for abortion providers, portrays a chilling view into extremist anti-abortion violence that has plagued doctors and their patients for decades.
Anti-abortion extremist violence between 1973 and 1993 included:
- 9 murders
- 17 attempted murders
- 406 death threats
- 179 incidents of assault or battery
- 5 kidnappings
And from 1977, property crimes committed against abortion providers had included:
- 41 bombings
- 175 arsons
- 96 attempted bombings or arsons
- 692 bomb threats
- 1,993 incidents of trespassing
- 1,400 incidents of vandalism
- 100 attacks with butyric acid (“stink bombs”
In April 1992, thousands of “prayer warriors” and anti-abortion extremist protesters met at the entrances of Buffalo Abortion Clinics for a planned month of picketing and blockades, harassing women, trying to convince them to not go through with their abortion appointments. After a week of healthcare interference and clashes with police, involving Operation Rescue, more than 400 protesters were arrested.
One anti-abortion group known as the Army of God (a designated terrorist group) committed much of these violent crimes, which promoted the use of violence in order to ostensibly stop abortions. They viewed the killing of an abortion provider as a virtuous act. This group alone was responsible for bombing and setting fire to over one hundred clinics before 1994 and invading more than three hundred clinics and vandalized more than four hundred. In 1993, officials found the Army of God Manual, a tactical guide to arson, chemical attacks, invasions and bombing.
America’s first murder of an abortion provider took place in 1993, when American Christian fundamentalist, anti-abortion extremist Michael Frederick Griffin shot 47-year-old Dr. David Gunn three times in the back in Pensacola, Florida. Griffin claims he was brainwashed by John Allen Burt, a fellow Christian fundamentalist and anti-abortion activist, who was a convicted child molester and called himself Griffin’s “spiritual adviser.”
In 1994, the FACE Act was passed with bipartisan support in direct response to this rising violence and intimidation against abortion providers and their patients.
And though anti-abortion blockades were reduced, other forms of violence continue. One particularly heinous attack occurred in 2015 when gunman Robert Lewis Dear Jr. walked into the Planned Parenthood (PP) in Colorado Springs with a semi-automatic rifle and murdered three innocent people and injured nine others, while mumbling something about “baby parts.” Authorities had to use armored vehicles to crash into the front of the building for the rescue attempt, causing extensive damage.
The tragedy took place shortly after the anti-abortion extremist David Daleiden of the erroneously named Center for Medical Progress — an anti-abortion propaganda organization that exists solely to abolish PP — released heavily-edited “sting” videos against PP, accusing the healthcare organization of profiting off of selling fetal tissue — or as Daleiden STILL calls it today on social media, “selling baby parts,” despite inciting a right-wing extremist to gun down innocent people.
Daleiden later lost a multi-million dollar defamation lawsuit brought by Planned Parenthood.
The blood of these innocent people is on his hands.
RELATED: Planned Parenthood shooting victims remembered by family, friends
Present day right-wing efforts to abolish the FACE Act
To hear anti-abortion extremists tell it, the FACE Act was an overreaching act of government with aims to squash the free speech of “peaceful protestors” having kumbaya sit-ins — not, you know, violently harassing and blocking women from accessing their medical appointments after two decades of increasing anti-abortion terrorism.
Far-right Representative Chip Roy (R-Texas), who also espouses anti-immigrant and -LGBTQ ideology, has now introduced H.B. 5577 to repeal the FACE Act. It has no chance of passing, but it means anti-abortion grifters and GOP politicians can get weeks of fundraising benefit out of it.
The most morally bankrupt part of this is that anti-abortion violence toward abortion providers has been on a sharp incline since Roe was overturned.
The GOP does not care how much pain and suffering they inflict on the American people for their political power moves.
Now the FACE Act is being weaponized by the GOP against repro rights activists
Adding complication to the issue, the GOP has lobbied the U.S. Dept. of Justice on using the FACE Act against a spattering of minor incidents of vandalism and arson committed by alleged reproductive rights activists against fake pregnancy centers (Christian-run centers that lie to patients about abortion and contraceptives in order to push their forced birth agenda).
It’s the right-wing playbook: twist facts and laws meant to protect people, and weaponize them against those who are fighting for justice and equality.
Join me soon for part two of this series, when I take a deeper dive into this bad precedent of a total miscarriage of justice. I will cover the facts of the issue and the repro rights activists being targeted.
