The House Judiciary Committee voted Tuesday, June 10, to clear a bill (HR 589; linked below) repealing the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act. The FACE Act is a 1994 law (PL 103-259), introduced by then-Senator Ted Kennedy and then-Rep. Chuck Schumer and signed by President Bill Clinton, that imposes federal criminal and civil penalties against persons who “injure, intimidate, or interfere with any person… obtaining or providing reproductive health services.” The criminal penalties include a maximum fine of $10,000 and/or six months imprisonment for a first offense of “exclusively… nonviolent physical obstruction,” escalating to $25,000 and/or 18 months for subsequent similar offenses. If the government omits the “nonviolent” categorization, a first offense could net up to a year in jail and up to $100,000 in fines; subsequent offenses, $250,000 and/or three years. A conviction involving “bodily injury” carries a maximum sentence of ten years imprisonment, one involving death up to life imprisonment. FACE also authorizes civil fines against offenders by the parties (e.g., clinic owners), the U.S. Attorney General, and/or state attorneys general.

The FACE Act was driven by the activity of Operation Rescue in the early 1990s, which shut down abortion clinics through nonviolent sit-ins, and the killing of an abortionist, David Gunn. In some ways, it was also a political compromise among Democrats, who took control of Congress and no longer were stymied by pro-life President George H.W. Bush’s likely vetoes. In that calculation, FACE was the absolute minimum Democrats could give the more aggressive members of their pro-abortion base. The latter was driving for Congressional codification of the principles of Roe v. Wade into federal law, something that never happened.

Texas Congressman Chip Roy is leading the charge to repeal FACE. From Judiciary, HR 589 goes to the Rules Committee, which controls what goes to the floor on what schedule. Rules usually takes the political temperature of interest in legislation. If sent to the floor, the FACE repeal will probably pass the House. Its Senate fate is more doubtful; it would have to overcome a likely filibuster, which requires 60 votes. Democrats practically control 47 of 100 seats, and one can readily imagine now-Senate Minority Leader Schumer defending the work of his hands.

The impetus to scrap FACE especially comes from its aggressive weaponization under the “Catholic” Biden Administration. Biden and his Attorney General, Merrick Garland, militantly prosecuted pro-lifers — including elderly pro-lifers — under FACE, gaining 34 convictions (see here). Some of those pro-lifers were not freed until they were pardoned by President Donald Trump in the first days of his administration. We also know from Europe (e.g., Scotland) that FACE-type restrictions have grown exponentially, rendering even silent peaceful protest within a certain radius of an abortuary (something FACE affords lip-service protection to) criminal. This was precisely what Vice President J.D. Vance criticized as suppressed freedom of speech in Europe during his February Munich Security Conference address (see here).

Incidentally, compare Biden-Harris FACE prosecutions to its foot-dragging in investigations of vandalism and arson against pregnancy center facilities, especially in the immediate aftermath of the Dobbs decision.

In the wake of tidal waves of “peaceful protests” the Left is organizing against various and sundry Trump Administration initiatives — most prominently and most recently in Los Angeles — Catholics and pro-lifers should demand answers to some very targeted questions. Liberals are claiming that current “protests,” particularly against federal immigration law enforcement, are “peaceful.” Their definition of “peaceful” seems, however, strained. Is obstructing a public thoroughfare “peaceful?” Is bodily obstruction of a federal immigration officer seeking to make an arrest “peaceful” and “non-violent?” Is destruction of property incidental to a “peaceful protest,” well, “things happen”?

I posed these questions previously (here). My further question is: If the expansive criteria of injuring, intimidating, or interfering contained in the FACE Act — especially as they were interpreted under the Biden-Harris Administration — is applied to current “peaceful protestors,” how many actually would be prosecutable? The answer would be telling because, presumably, norms governing injuring, intimidating, or interfering with a federal immigration law officer performing his job ought to be at least as strict as for a for-profit abortionist. They certainly should not be weaker.

Under FACE, “physical obstruction” means rendering movement “unreasonably difficult or hazardous.” Isn’t requiring ICE agents to navigate crowds blocking them from reaching suspects before they can flee “unreasonably difficult or hazardous”? Under FACE, “interfere” means “to restrict a person’s freedom of movement.” Doesn’t anybody intentionally standing in the line of a federal law enforcement official in hot pursuit of a suspect interfering? Under FACE, “intimidate” means “to place a person in reasonable apprehension of bodily harm to him- or herself or to another.” If a federal agent has to get through a hostile crowd standing between him and his suspect without injury to himself or anybody in the crowd (the latter certainly becoming a news item), isn’t that intimidation?

Finally, if FACE remains on the books, I can certainly foresee a future “progressive” administration expanding its provisions to “protect” gender mutilation facilities, invoking FACE’s definition of “reproductive health services” as including anything involving “the human reproductive system.”

[A link to bill HR 589 is here.]