Seven out of eleven pro-life advocates facing conspiracy charges for peaceful protests in 2021 have gone to trial.
As Caldron Pool reported in Jan. 2023, the Biden DOJ – still reeling from the Supreme Court ending Roe V. Wade – took up the matter in response to recommendations made by the Biden abortion task force on “Reproductive Rights.”
That reactionary organisation, founded in October 2022, polices infringements to the “rights” of mothers wanting to end the life of their child in the womb.
On their recommendation, eleven pro-life peaceful protesters were charged, and are just now being brought to trial, under Clinton-era FACE (Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances) legislation.
The law protects the practice of abortion, and prohibits pro-life carers from counselling, praying, teaching, or criticising abortion inside “safe space” buffer zones around abortion clinics.
All eleven pro-life peaceful protesters have been indicted and will sit before a trial by jury in two separate groups.
Known as Defendant Group Number One, and Defendant Group Number Two, the punishment, if convicted of Conspiracy Against Civil Rights includes a USD$250,000 fine, plus 10 years imprisonment.
Add to this 1-year in gaol, and a USD$10,000 fine for violating the FACE Act, if convicted.
Their crimes, according to the – by all appearances vindictive – controversial Biden DOJ, amount to “co-ordinating, and organising a group on Facebook, to stop people from seeking “healthcare.”
An exaggerated recount of the group’s peaceful protest in the hallway outside (the now defunct) Carafem “Health” Center Clinic, in Mount Juliet, Tennessee.
Group one includes father of 11, Paul Vaughn, who, like Mark Houck (since acquitted) was arrested in front of his kids, when the FBI with guns drawn, raided his home.
Biden’s apparent political persecution of the eleven continues despite the Abortion clinic’s closure.
This fact alone suggests the Woke White House is still trying to make an example out of the eleven for political traction with “life unworthy of life” abortion activists.
Notably, group two of those being prosecuted by the Federal Government features 87-year-old, Eva Edl, a concentration camp survivor.
Disgusted, she told the Epoch News in 2023, “If a child’s life isn’t safe, nobody’s life is safe.”
“When I was on the cattle car with all my people, and we were shipped to the death camp to be exterminated, the people around us were not in agreement with what the government did. But they were intimidated.”
Defiant, and determined, Eva credited Christ, then added, “We have to overcome that fear and do what is right anyhow.
“Then He helps us through it.
“I just wish, in those days, that somebody would have cared enough to go in front of that [Concentration Camp] gate and stand on those railroad tracks and say:
“You cannot take these babies and children unless you go over our dead bodies.”
Breaking news of the trial going forward, The Daily Wire said the jury for group one is comprised of 11 women and 5 men.
One of the group, Caroline Davis, pleaded guilty and turned state’s witness.
DW recounted that the Biden DOJ denied that the protest was peaceful, accusing the pro-life advocates of planning to prevent women from seeking “healthcare.”
Federal prosecutors allege the group deliberately set out to “violate Federal law.”
Appearing to dispute those allegations [we could say trumped-up charges] police officer, Lance Schneider, testified that the pro-life group was “not being violent, or offering physical resistance.”
The Daily Wire’s Leif Le Maheiu recalled Schneider adding that as he ‘was guiding one woman into the facility, several people did stand in his way. However, he was able to gently move them to the side.’
Schneider told the court, police did not arrest the pro-lifers that day because they saw no reason to arrest them.
Le Maheiu said, following the proceedings, the accused gathered outside the courthouse, and sang, “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name.”
