The FACE Act Weaponized (Part 2 of 3): Unexpected Targets

Second 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 reproductive rights activists

In Part 1 of this series, I highlighted the history of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE Act), which was passed in 1994 and was designed to counter violent threats against abortion clinics. Today, however, its application seems broadened to include lesser acts of vandalism, thereby targeting reproductive rights activists more aggressively. This federal targeting, under the Biden administration, has ramped up after far-right anti-abortion Republicans called for it.

The most recent case involves a 20-year-old student, Soren Monroe, from Bowling Green State University in Ohio. Monroe is facing federal charges for allegedly spray-painting a wall of an anti-abortion so-called “crisis pregnancy center (CPC)” — Bowling Green Pregnancy Center, also known as HerChoice.

(photo: Bowling Green Pregnancy Center)

Upon being charged, Monroe pled not guilty on July 7 and was subsequently released on a $10,000 unsecured bond. If convicted, Monroe could face a maximum of one year in prison.

Previously, similar charges had been leveled in Florida against activists Caleb Freestone, Amber Smith-Stewart, Gabriella Oropesa, and Annarella Rivera, who were also accused of spray-painting messages on a CPC.

If convicted of the offenses, Rivera, Freestone, and Smith-Stewart each face an absurd prison sentence of up to a maximum of 12 years, three years of supervised release, and fines of up to $350,000. Oropesa faces up to a maximum of 10 years in prison, three years of supervised release, and a fine of up to $250,000.

It’s worth highlighting that among the four defendants in Florida, three are women of color, belonging to the very groups most adversely affected by the erosion of reproductive rights. It’s a slap in the face that this is happening on the Biden administration’s watch — an administration that claims to champion reproductive justice.

As Haley McMahon, a public health researcher who studies abortion and criminalization at Emory University, explained in an Intercept article earlier this year:

The level of bothsideism here by the DOJ goes beyond absurdity. Frankly, this is something I would have expected to see from the Trump Administration. Despite a rapidly growing number of clinic invasions, bullets fired through clinic windows, and other acts of violence, FACE is rarely even used by the DOJ to charge anti-abortion protesters who disrupt care at licensed clinics. [The Justice Department is] setting an incredibly irresponsible precedent for recognizing CPCs as medical facilities that provide reproductive health services.

That’s because:

1. It’s preposterous to suggest CPCs “provide reproductive health services,” which is the basis for the DOJ charging pro-abortion activists under the FACE Act. The very reason these anti-abortion pregnancy centers are targeted by non-violent action in the first place is because they don’t offer genuine reproductive health services. They stand as pillars within a system heavily financed by the GOP and Christian fundamentalists — propped up by the Supreme Court — promoting forced pregnancies, pregnancy-related complications and deaths as they delay care, and criminalization under state abortion bans when they share women’s private health information with national anti-abortion networks. Because they are not licensed medical centers, alarmingly, they are not required to abide by HIPPA laws. (Learn more about CPCs.)
2. As McMahon alluded to, the DOJ doesn’t even consistently use the FACE Act to go after anti-abortion violence that can be deemed much worse than spray paint. For example, a woman from Kansas sent a menacing letter to an individual training to become an abortion doctor, stating, “You will be checking under your car everyday because maybe today is the day someone places an explosive under it.” She also mailed appreciation letters the killer of Wichita abortion doctor in 2009. But the Justice Department responded with, “The court concluded that the letter did not constitute a ‘true threat’ as it 1) did not indicate any immediate or unequivocal violence, and 2) did not imply that the defendant would partake in the threatened violence.”
3. In further stark comparison: In 2021, an individual was convicted of federal crimes, including breaching the FACE Act, after making two distinct phone threats to an abortion clinic in the Columbus, Ohio region. Initially, the person threatened a patient’s life, and in a subsequent call, issued a bomb threat to the clinic. The court sentenced the individual to a prison term of one year and one day. Other incidents have involved aggressive blockades; Molotov cocktails, bricks, and gun bullets destroying reproductive clinics; and the worst charge — the murder of three innocent people at the Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs.

Comparing spray painting a wall, which can be painted over within hours, with these menacing attacks of anti-abortion violence that wreaked havoc on communities is completely harebrained.

As Biden’s DOJ persists in this clownish miscarriage of justice, the future for reproductive rights activists and the broader reproductive rights movement remains uncertain. These ongoing events in our seemingly upside-down world of mirrors signify a huge discrepancy between activists’ First Amendment rights and the absurd application of overly punitive laws that were originally designed to protect abortion clinics.

Join me next time for Part 3 in this series, as I shine a brighter spotlight on the repro rights activists directly charged under the FACE Act. They will share their stories in their own words.