Republicans Move To Repeal Act Biden Used To Jail Pro-Lifers

Republican Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, with the support of 25 Republican cosponsors, reintroduced legislation on Tuesday that seeks to prevent the political prosecution of peaceful pro-lifers by repealing the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act.

Congress first passed the FACE Act in 1994. It was at the direction of President Joe Biden after the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson decision nearly two decades later, however, that the FBI and Department of Justice started to arrest and hand down uncharacteristically harsh sentences to dozens of people, many Christians, who peacefully protested ending life in the womb.

“Americans just spent the last four years being targeted by a weaponized justice system. The FACE Act was one of the primary weapons of abuse — being used to politically target, arrest, and jail pro-life Americans for speaking out and standing up for life,” Roy said in a statement.

Former FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress during a House Judiciary Committee hearing in July 2024 that his agency did not single out those who made their opposition to abortion known. As Roy noted, however, “97% of FACE Act prosecutions from 1994-2024 were against pro-life Americans.” 

Only five of the 60 FACE Act cases brought under the Biden regime zeroed in on pro-abortion extremists. The other 55 mostly targeted peaceful pro-lifers who dedicated their time to praying, singing, and evangelizing at abortion facilities.

Roy said that, while he appreciates the Trump administration’s vigilance in “reversing the damage of the J6 political prosecutions” and its potential to do the same for persecuted pro-lifers, it is Congress’s duty “to do our part to eliminate the laws used for the weaponization, including the FACE Act.”

“Now that we have a Republican trifecta in the House, Senate, and White House, Congress should move quickly to repeal this law and ensure that no future president can weaponize it against pro-lifers ever again. No more excuses, let’s get it done,” Roy said.

The attempt to repeal the FACE Act is not isolated to the Republican-controlled House. GOP Sen. Mike Lee, who has long stood with Roy in calling for the end of the act, is expected to mirror the move in the upper chamber.

Thomas More Society Senior Counsel Stephen Crampton, who has led the legal effort to represent pro-lifers unfairly persecuted under Biden in court, told The Federalist that abolishing the FACE Act has been a long time coming.

“The fact is, FACE, we believe, was unconstitutional from day one. It was beyond Congress’s authority,” he said. “Since the Dobbs decision in 2022, clarifying the fact that abortion never was a federal constitutional right, the whole purpose for the FACE Act has vanished, and consequently the law itself ought to be done away with.”

In his testimony before the House Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government in December, Crampton declared, “There is therefore no federal constitutional right to abortion, and the very reason for FACE’s existence no longer exists.”

The only way to ensure this lost purpose and constitutional validity is properly addressed, he acknowledged to The Federalist on Tuesday, is for Congress to act while Republicans have control.

“Congress created the mess that has been the Face Act and its abuses, and Congress ultimately ought to be the one to fix it,” Crampton said.