House Republicans have advanced a bill that would roll back the federal government’s ability to fine or imprison peaceful pro-life advocates, while Democrats slurred its Republican sponsors as “terrorists” who want to “green light violence” and see women raped, abused, and killed.
On Tuesday, the House Judiciary Committee approved the FACE Act Repeal Act (H.R. 589) by a 13-10 vote. The legislation, introduced multiple times by Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), would delete the 1994 Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act — a Clinton-era law that prohibits blocking the entrances to any abortion facility, reproductive health office, or house of worship — from the books. The act, which would codify President Donald Trump’s executive orders on “Ending The Weaponization Of The Federal Government,” “Enforcing the Hyde Amendment,” and “Eradicating Anti-Christian Bias,” now moves forward for a vote before the full House.
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“What the Biden-Harris administration did to peaceful pro-lifers like Mark Houck, Paul Vaughn, and Lauren Handy, among many others, can never be erased. The FACE Act is unconstitutional, and today’s committee vote on its repeal is an important step to restoring justice for the pro-life advocates who were targets of weaponized prosecutions and for restoring the rule of law for all,” Peter Breen, executive vice president and head of litigation at the pro-life Thomas More Society, told The Washington Stand. The Thomas More Society legally represented many of those charged and successfully petitioned President Trump to pardon 21 sidewalk counselors.
Pro-life advocates have long condemned the one-sided enforcement of the FACE Act, which Roy said Democratic administrations had “politicized and weaponized against people across this country, including people of faith” nationwide. “The Biden Department of Justice brought almost a quarter of all the FACE Act prosecutions, 24% of all charges targeting pro-life activists, in less than four years” while “turning a blind eye to the anti-life activists engaged in destroying, vandalizing, and even firebombing pregnancy resource centers and churches at the same time.”
Only 8% of Biden-Harris FACE Act cases were against those who vandalized pro-life pregnancy centers, he said. Studies show pro-life pregnancy resource centers are 22 times more likely to be attacked than abortion facilities. The Biden-Harris administration also declined to prosecute a single one of the 436 church attacks that took place in 2024 under the FACE Act.
Legal experts highlighted that, for the first time, the Biden-Harris administration charged peaceful pro-life advocates with violating both the FACE Act and the Ku Klux Klan Act’s ‘Conspiracy Against Rights’ felony provisions (18 U.S.C. § 241). Together, the charges could bring more than a decade in prison. “The previous administration weaponized the FACE Act to prosecute nonviolent pro-life Americans with the harshest sentences,” said Roy.
“Since 1994, 97% — I repeat that — 97% of FACE Act prosecutions have been against pro-lifers,” added Rep. Bob Odner (R-Mo.). The Biden-Harris administration particularly engaged in thuggish, intimidating behavior against peaceful pro-life activists,” including Mark Houck and Paul Vaughn. Odner described the disproportionate prosecution of Christian conservatives as the “intended effect of the FACE Act.”
For three decades, “the FACE Act was always intended as a cudgel against pro-life speech, with 97% of prosecutions brought by the DOJ over its 30-year history having targeted pro-lifers,” Breen told TWS. “Our clients — loving moms and dads, grandparents, priests, and nonviolent people of faith — have faced harsher charges and sentences than convicted drug dealers and fraudsters.”
“To ensure this never happens again and to protect the constitutional rights of peaceful pro-lifers to advocate against the injustice of abortion, Congress must repeal the FACE Act,” said Breen.
Some ‘Resistance’ from the Trump Administration against Repealing the FACE Act
Yet Roy revealed he had been “getting some resistance even from our own [Trump] administration” over entirely repealing the FACE Act, saying DOJ officials “will use it to defend churches more.” Likewise, Rep. Deborah Ross (D-N.C.) threatened, “If this bill comes out of committee,” she will tell “the rabbis and members of the Jewish community in my district” that “the Republicans on the Judiciary Committee no longer care about enforcing federal law when it comes to our synagogues.”
Still, Roy said he remained concerned about the general plague of “overcriminalization” and “the overempowerment of the Department of Justice … regardless of who’s in the White House.”
One Republican opposed the bill: Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) called himself pro-life and found the Biden-Harris administration guilty of “the abuse of this act.” But McClintock claimed the FACE Act “protects every person, pro-life or pro-abortion, in their right to assemble and express their views openly.”
“When this bill was drafted, great pains were taken to keep its enforcement balanced,” claimed McClintock, who said he wanted to see the act amended rather than repealed, because “the law itself is viewpoint-neutral.” He stated the law is “important to protect the pro-life [minority] in California.”
“I’m glad to hear you oppose this bill,” Nadler, one of the authors of the 1994 bill, told McClintock.
Roy remained steadfast. “Freedom is just an illusion when the government buries its own citizens under ridiculous and never-ending criminal laws,” Rep. Roy told TWS. “Almost any American could be indicted [and] charged from some crime, often without even knowing they had violated a law or regulation.” The Texas conservative’s comments came as his committee marked up another of his bills, the Count the Crimes to Cut Act of 2025, intended simply to come up with a formal list of all crimes in the federal register.
Democrats: Pro-life Advocates Are ‘Terrorists’ Who ‘Want’ Women to Be Raped, Abused, or Killed
Rather than debate the act’s history of lopsided legal enforcement, most of the committee’s Democrats maligned the motives of Roy and others who sought the punitive bill’s repeal.
“The only people in America who are asking for this legislation to be repealed are terrorists,” averred Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), who said opponents had “a sick obsession” with “telling women what to do with their bodies.” Said Trump does not support nonviolent protests, because he just sent Marines to oppose “protesters” in Los Angeles.
“This is a green light for more violence against women,” said Swalwell.
“We have people in this body who are essentially saying it is okay to harm, to hurt, maybe even to kill someone,” insisted Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Calif.). After discussing a woman who was raped and assaulted by her male partner, she said, “If you want to repeal this, you’re saying it’s okay for that to happen to her.” She then claimed those who wanted to repeal the weaponized FACE Act had violated their faith, saying, “You cannot be a Christian and condone that kind of activity.”
“We’re considering this legislation for one reason: to green light violence against abortion care in this country. … The reason the FACE Act exists is because anti-abortion extremists refuse to renounce violence,” asserted Rep. Jesús “Chuy” Garcia (D-Ill.).
“There is only one reason” anyone would want to repeal the FACE Act, agreed Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.): “They want to see violent obstruction.”
Several Democrats — including the committee’s ranking member, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) — dismissed concerns that a judge had jailed a 75-year-old grandmother who prayed peacefully at an abortion facility by citing a “fact-check” from Associated Press reporter Melissa Goldin, claiming the elderly Paulette Harlow had been arrested for a FACE Act violation, not prayer. Harlow allegedly blockaded the Washington Surgi-Center, where pro-life advocates discovered the bodies of five viable babies who had possibly been subjected to illegal late-term abortions by Cesare Santangelo. Media and social media “fact-checkers” have been documented misinforming the public about the origins of COVID-19, the efficacy of masks, and natural immunity; the existence of Hunter Biden’s laptop; and abortion’s safety. U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, a Clinton appointee who has handed down numerous pro-abortion opinions, sentenced Harlow to two years and dismissed concerns over Harlow’s age and ill-health, telling her husband that the 75-year-old should “make an effort to remain alive,” since pro-life beliefs are “a tenet of her religion.”
“No, you are not being arrested for praying. You are being arrested for making threats,” insisted Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-Pa.). “There is no evidence that there is selective enforcement here, that the FACE Act has been weaponized against abortion protesters.”
Nadler similarly decried “the slanders against the FACE Act.”
President Trump has taken executive action to protect pro-life advocates and end the weaponization of government rampant under his predecessor. In his first week in office, President Donald Trump fulfilled a campaign promise made at the 2023 Pray Vote Stand Summit and pardoned 23 pro-life advocates convicted of violating the FACE Act during the Biden-Harris administration. The president said they “should not have been prosecuted” and called their imprisonment “ridiculous.”
“This is a great honor to sign this,” said President Trump.
But pro-life advocates say executive actions turn on a dime with the change of administrations. For peaceful sidewalk counselors to rest easy, lawmakers must expunge the underlying law from the nation’s legal code.
“We are grateful for the House Judiciary Committee’s leadership on this crucial matter, applaud the passage of Rep. Chip Roy’s FACE Act Repeal bill, and urge Congress to send it to the president’s desk,” Breen told TWS.
LifeNews Note: Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

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