Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX), who has been leading the charge on repealing the law used to persecute peaceful abortion-clinic protestors, expressed hope that his bill to do just that receives a vote by the end of the year.
WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) – U.S. Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX), who has been leading the charge on repealing the law used to federally persecute peaceful abortion-clinic protestors, expressed hope Wednesday that his bill to do just that receives a vote by the end of the year.
Numerous pro-life activists are currently facing or serving prison sentences under the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, supposedly for blocking the entrance to abortion facilities during peaceful protests. Returning President Donald Trump has pledged to “sign their pardons or commutation on Day One,” and his Department of Justice (DOJ) is expected to discontinue any future prosecutions over the next four years, but as long as the FACE Act remains in place, so too does the threat of a future administration reviving them.
“Obviously, we need to move the bill forward, and it would be critical because of what we’re seeing with respect to the persecution of Americans being put in jail,” Roy, who has introduced legislation to repeal the FACE Act, told The Daily Signal Wednesday. “We’re after the election now, so I feel like we ought to put it out there this year. Go ahead and vote on it, so that more Americans can’t get persecuted.”
Enacted in 1994, the FACE Act ostensibly protects access to facilities run by both pro-life and pro-abortion organizations, including abortion facilities, pro-life pregnancy centers, and churches. However, conservatives have argued that the Department of Justice under the Biden Administration has weaponized the act to prosecute pro-life activists while only a handful of pro-abortion vandals have been arrested following a string of attacks on churches and pro-life centers in the wake of the Supreme Court’s June 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Among the most egregious Biden prosecutions have been the so-called DC Nine who entered an abortion center in the nation’s capital and refused to leave in 2022, and who received prison time despite several of them being elderly with medical issues. Also concerning was the case of Mark Houck, a Philadelphia pro-lifer whom the DOJ prosecuted under the FACE Act after arresting in a morning FBI raid for a physical altercation with a hostile abortion supporter that local authorities had already dismissed. Houck was acquitted in January 2023.
To put a stop to such overreach, Roy introduced legislation to repeal the FACE Act last year, and has aggressively championed it ever since.
“I think with the trifecta, we should be able to pass it,” Roy told the Signal. “We should bring it forward. But look, Republicans are going to have to get the nerve to actually stand up for both free speech and life.”
The GOP won the presidency and both chambers of Congress in the 2024 elections, but the new government favorably inclined to repealing the FACE Act does not take office until January. When it does, Senate Republicans will still have to overcome the 60-vote filibuster threshold for passing most legislation.