Donald Trump He announced Thursday that he would pardon anti-abortion activists miscarriage Clinic entrances. Trump called it “a great honor to sign this.”
“They should not be prosecuted,” he said as he signed the pardon to the “quiet pro-life protesters.”
People shared the pardon in the October 2020 invasion and siege of the Washington Clinic.
Lorraine Handy was sentenced to nearly five years in prison for leading the blockade by directing griefers to bind themselves with padlocks and chains to block the clinic’s doors. Prosecutors said a nurse twisted her ankle when one person pushed her while walking into a clinic, and a woman was tended to by another while she was in labor pains. Police found five fetuses in Handy’s home after she was charged.
Trump pardons Handy and her nine accusers: Jonathan Darrell of Virginia; Guy Smith, John Henshaw and William Goodman, all of New York; Joan Bell from New Jersey; Paulette Harlow and Jean Marshall, both of Massachusetts; Heather Edoni of Michigan; and Herb Geraghty of Pennsylvania.
In the first week of Trump’s presidency, abortion advocates have increased calls for Trump to pardon protesters accused of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, which is designed to protect abortion clinics from obstruction and threats. The 1994 law was passed during a time when clinic protests and protests were on the rise, as was violence against abortion providers, such as the murder of Dr. David John in 1993.
Trump specifically mentioned Harlow in a critical June letter Joe BidenThe Ministry of Justice to pursue charges against the demonstrators participating in the siege.
“A lot of people are in prison because of this,” he said in June, adding: “We will take care of it immediately.”
Abortion rights advocates criticized Trump’s pardon as evidence of his opposition to abortion access, despite his vague, contradictory statements on the issue as he tried to find a middle ground on the campaign trail between allies of opponents and the majority of Americans who support abortion rights.
“On the campaign trail, Donald Trump tried to have it both ways — bragging about his role in overturning Roe v Wade while saying he wouldn’t take action on abortion,” said Ryan Stetzlin, vice president of political and government relations for him. National abortion rights organization Reproductive Freedom for All. “We never thought this was right, and this shows us that we were right.”
Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of SBA Pro-Life America, thanked Trump for “immediately making good on his promise” to pardon the protesters, arguing that their prosecutions were political.
In a letter to Trump in January, the legal group The Thomas More Society argued that the face-to-face defendants it represents have been “unfairly imprisoned.” The group assured the defendants that Trump would review their cases and pardon them when he took office, according to the letter.
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“Today, freedom rings true in our great nation,” said Steve Crampton, senior counsel at the Thomas More Society, adding: “What happened to her can never be erased, but today’s pardon is a huge step toward restoring justice.”
Republican Sen. Josh Hawley, among Trump’s most loyal supporters, called the prosecution of anti-abortion protesters “a hideous assault on the principles of this country” and urged Trump to pardon them while reading the stories of these anti-abortion protesters on the Senate floor Thursday. He highlighted Eva Edel, who was involved in the 2021 Tennessee clinic siege and whose story captured the nation’s largest anti-abortion groups.
Hawley said he “had a great conversation” Thursday morning with Trump about the protesters.
News of the pardon comes ahead of the annual anti-abortion protest march on Friday in Washington, where the president is expected to address the crowd in a video.
