House Committee Advances Bill to Repeal Law Used to Target Pro-Life Activists Under Biden

The House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday advanced a bill that would repeal a law weaponized by the Biden administration to target pro-life activists after the Supreme Court overturnedRoe v. Wade. 

The committee approved Rep. Chip Roy’s (R-TX) bill to repeal the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act — the FACE Act Repeal Act — in a 13-10 vote along party lines. 

“There are many people in this country who believe this legislation is critically important so that you can end the abuse of the existing federal statute to be used politically to target American citizens for political purposes, as was evidenced repeatedly, over and over and over again, under the previous administration,” Roy said during the markup.

Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA) was the only Republican to oppose the bill, although he left the hearing before the final tally.

“Rather than repeal it, I’d prefer we use this experience to revise it to ensure its administration is even-handed in the future,” McClintock said.

The FACE Act is a law passed in 1994 prohibiting “violent, threatening, damaging, and obstructive conduct intended to injure, intimidate, or interfere with the right to seek, obtain, or provide reproductive health services.” The act was written to equally protect abortion clinics, pro-life pregnancy resource centers, and churches. However, 97 percent of FACE Act cases since the law’s inception have been against pro-life advocates.

Roy and Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) first introduced the bill in September of 2023, contending at the time that the FACE Act is “an unconstitutional federal takeover of state police powers.” Roy and Lee introduced the bill again in January, right before President Donald Trump pardoned more than 20 pro-life activists prosecuted by the Biden DOJ. 

Data obtained by Rep. Chip Roy’s (R-TX) office found that in less than four years, Biden’s DOJ accounted for more than a quarter of all 211 FACE prosecutions since the law’s inception. At least 55 FACE Act cases were prosecuted during the Biden administration, only a handful of which were against pro-abortion attacks on pregnancy centers, despite the increase in attacks against pro-life pregnancy centers and churches following the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision.

Biden’s DOJ often added a KKK-era conspiracy against rights charge to bolster potential sentencing time, and for a few cases, the FBI allegedly conducted early morning raids against pro-life advocates, even allegedly holding them at gunpoint in front of their families. Some of the activists targeted by the Biden DOJ include an 89-year-old communist concentration camp survivor, several grandmothers, and a Christian father of 11.

Democrats slammed Roy’s bill and rejected the data he presented showing the law being used to target pro-life activists. 

“If more people have been convicted of attacking abortion clinics than pregnancy centers, it’s because vastly more people are attacking abortion clinics,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) said.

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) claimed his Republican colleagues “do not trust women.”

“That’s what this is entirely about. The only people in America who are asking for this legislation to be repealed are terrorists,” he claimed. 

President Trump’s Department of Justice issued a memorandum in late January after he pardoned the pro-life activists, pledging to end the “weaponization” of the FACE Act and dismissing three more FACE Act cases. The DOJ memo read:

President Trump campaigned on the promise of ending the weaponization of the federal government and has recently directed all federal departments and agencies to identify and correct the past weaponization of law enforcement. To many Americans, prosecutions and civil actions under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (“FACE Act”) have been the prototypical example of this weaponization. And for good reason.

“Even though more than 100 crisis pregnancy centers, pro-life organizations, and churches were attacked in the immediate aftermath of the Dobbs decision, nearly all prosecutions under the FACE Act have been against pro-life protesters. That is not the even-handed administration of justice,” the memo continued.

Katherine Hamilton is a political reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on X @thekat_hamilton.