On Thursday, President Donald Trump pardoned 23 pro-life activists who had been prosecuted by the Biden administration for peacefully protesting outside abortion clinics. The Biden-era Department of Justice (DOJ) had frequently invoked the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act to prosecute pro-life activists, many of whom are elderly and had received multi-year prison sentences.
The pardons come just one day before the annual March for Life, where Vice President J.D. Vance is scheduled to speak, the Daily Caller reported. “Twenty-three people were prosecuted. They should not have been prosecuted,” Trump said while signing the pardon. “Many of them are elderly people. They should not have been prosecuted. This is a great honor to sign this.”
During Biden’s presidency, many pro-life activists not only faced prison sentences but were also burdened with fines totaling tens of thousands of dollars. In one instance, an activist accused of “felony conspiracy against rights” was arrested at gunpoint in front of his children after an FBI raid on his home, the outlet reported. Biden’s DOJ allowed many violent and destructive attacks on churches and pro-life pregnancy centers to go unprosecuted, meanwhile.
During his presidency, Biden was a strong advocate for abortion rights. He criticized the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, calling it a “tragic error,” and sought to implement federal protections for abortion access despite the ruling. The former president also voiced admiration for abortion advocates, awarding the Presidential Medal of Freedom—the nation’s highest civilian honor—to former Planned Parenthood director Cecile Richards. Biden commended her “courage” and leadership in advancing what he described as “a nation of freedom” during her tenure, which oversaw at least 3.8 million abortions.
“President Trump’s pardon today of pro-life activists unjustly imprisoned under President Biden is a great credit to his legacy,” Tommy Valentine, director of CatholicVote’s Catholic Accountability Project, noted in a statement. “We hope he will go a step further in undoing Biden’s unjust legacy by directing his Department of Justice to evenly enforce the FACE Act, for as long as it is on the books, against violent pro-abortion extremists who have been attacking pregnancy resource centers and churches for years.”
