Trump pardons anti-abortion activists who blocked clinic entrances | Donald Trump

Donald Trump announced Thursday that he would pardon anti-abortion activists convicted of blocking the entrances to abortion clinics. Trump called it “a great honor to sign this”.

“They should not have been prosecuted,” he said as he signed pardons for “peaceful pro-life protesters”.

The people pardoned were involved in the October 2020 invasion and blockade of a clinic in Washington.

Lauren Handy was sentenced to nearly five years in prison for leading the blockade by ordering the blockaders to link themselves with locks and chains to block the clinic’s doors. A nurse sprained her ankle when someone pushed her while entering the clinic, and a woman was attacked by another blockade while in labor, the prosecutor said. Police found five fetuses in Handy’s home after she was charged.

Trump pardoned Handy and her nine co-defendants: Jonathan Darnel of Virginia; Jay Smith, John Hinshaw and William Goodman, all of New York; Joan Bell of New Jersey; Paulette Harlow and Jean Marshall, both of Massachusetts; Heather Idoni of Michigan; and Herb Geraghty of Pennsylvania.

In the first week of Trump’s presidency, anti-abortion advocates have stepped up calls for Trump to pardon protesters charged with violating the Free Access to Clinics Act, which is designed to protect abortion clinics from obstruction and intimidation. The 1994 law was passed at a time when clinic protests and blockades were on the rise, as was violence against abortion providers, such as the murder of Dr. David Gunn in 1993.

Trump specifically mentioned Harlow in a June speech criticizing Joe Biden’s Justice Department for pursuing charges against protesters involved in blockades.

“A lot of people are in jail because of this,” he said in June, adding, “We’re going to take care of it right away.”

Abortion rights advocates criticized Trump’s pardons as evidence of his opposition to access to abortion, despite his vague, contradictory statements on the issue as he tried to strike a middle ground on the campaign trail between anti-abortion allies and the majority of Americans who support abortion rights.

“Donald Trump on the campaign trail tried to have it both ways — bragging about his role in overturning Roe v Wade while saying he would not take action on abortion,” said Ryan Stitzlein, vice president of policy and government relations for the National abortion rights organization Reproductive Freedom for All. “We never believed it was true, and this proves us right.”

Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of SBA Pro-Life America, thanked Trump for “immediately making good on his promise” to pardon the protesters, who argued that their prosecution had been political.

In a January letter to Trump, legal group the Thomas More Society argued that the Face Act defendants they represented had been “unjustly imprisoned.” The group had assured the defendants that Trump would review their cases and pardon them when he took office, according to the letter.

“Today, freedom rings in our great nation,” said Steve Crampton, senior counsel for the Thomas More Society, adding, “What happened to them can never be erased, but today’s pardons are a big step toward restoring justice. “

Republican Senator Josh Hawley, among Trump’s most loyal supporters, called the prosecution of anti-abortion protesters “a grotesque attack on the principles of this country” and urged Trump to pardon them as he read the stories of such anti-abortion protesters -protesters in the Senate. floor Thursday. He singled out Eva Edl, who was involved in a 2021 Tennessee clinic blockade and whose story has garnered attention from the largest national anti-abortion groups.

Hawley said he “had a good conversation” Thursday morning with Trump about the protesters.

News of the pardons comes ahead of Friday’s annual March for Life anti-abortion protest in Washington, where the president is expected to address the crowd in a video.