In the wake of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, pregnancy centers, churches and abortion clinics have been hit with a wave of violence, but pro-life advocates and legal experts who spoke with the Daily Caller News Foundation raised concerns that the Department of Justice (DOJ) is applying a “double standard” when investigating these crimes.
Over 100 churches, pregnancy centers, and their staff have been firebombed, vandalized, graffitied, assaulted, and intimidated since the leak of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs opinion in May 2022, according to a May 2023 report from the Family Research Center. Yet the DOJ has failed to use the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, which “prohibits threats of force, obstruction and property damage intended to interfere with reproductive health care services” and places of religious worship, to charge the individuals responsible, despite going after dozens of incidents targeting abortion clinics, according to advocates and legal experts that spoke with the DCNF.
“We have well over 300 churches, Catholic churches, that have been everything from firebombed, robbed and spray painted, alongside pregnancy care centers as well,” Tom McClusky, CatholicVote’s director of Government Affairs, told the DCNF. “And I believe the only time that the FACE Act has been used is for some people down in Florida and the Justice Department will not verify a [Freedom Of Information Act] request asking how many times has this been used.”
Rev. Jim Harden, president of the pro-life organization CompassCare, which was firebombed by pro-abortion activists in 2022, told the DCNF that he believed “without hesitation” the DOJ’s behavior “is a double standard.” He also noted the recent conviction of a woman, who spray-painted “LIARS” on one of the organization’s signs in New York’s Erie County.
via joemiller
