by Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell
A Catholic organization that tracks attacks on pro-life pregnancy centers and churches is urging the Justice Department to investigate over 400 known attacks since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.
The organization, CatholicVote, requested a meeting to discuss probes of pro-abortion violations of the FACE Act in a letter to Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke that it shared with The Daily Signal.
“The [Biden] administration has repeatedly met and coordinated with the abortion industry, but has refused to meet with representatives of the millions of pro-life Americans and concerned Catholic citizens who are being threatened and intimidated across the country,” CatholicVote President Brian Burch writes in the letter to Clarke.
The FACE Act prohibits “threats of force, obstruction and property damage intended to interfere with reproductive health care services.” The 1994 law protects abortion clinics and pro-life pregnancy centers.
The Justice Department, however, has used the law to charge pro-life activists with FACE Act violations in the months since June 2022, when the Supreme Court overturned its 1973 Roe ruling and ended abortion on demand across the nation.
Burch’s letter, dated June 21, asks Clarke why the DOJ disproportionally prosecutes pro-lifers for alleged violations of the FACE Act when the department apparently hasn’t prosecuted anyone for 439 attacks on pro-life Catholic churches since 2020.
“Nearly every single prosecution of alleged violence against abortion clinics has involved application of the FACE Act despite the lack of enforcement on attacks against churches and pregnancy resource centers,” Burch writes. “What policies are in place at the DOJ which contribute to this imbalance, and what is being done to rectify it?”
In June, three Florida pro-abortion activists pleaded guilty to conspiring to deface and threaten pro-life pregnancy resource centers in violation of the FACE Act. CatholicVote received an email from the Justice Department regarding the conviction, the letter says.
This was CatholicVote’s first communication with the DOJ in over two years, the organization says, despite several outreach attempts.
The Justice Department did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment before publication time.
“We are happy to see that your recent correspondence affirmatively acknowledges that pregnancy resource centers, including those that do not perform abortions, are indeed protected by the act, and deserving of the same protection,” Burch says in the letter to Clarke. “Regrettably, the pattern has been disproportionately strong enforcement of the FACE Act against pro-lifers and minimal enforcement against pro-abortion extremists.”
CatholicVote has documented relatively few arrests in response to attacks on Catholic churches and pregnancy centers. The organization’s letter to Clarke asks what steps, if any, the DOJ is taking to “identify, monitor, and investigate” pro-abortion groups behind the vandalism and other attacks, such as Jane’s Revenge and Ruth Sent Us.
A total of 90 attacks on pregnancy centers and pro-life groups have occurred since the Supreme Court overturned Roe in 2022, according to CatholicVote’s tracker.
“These are really concerning incidents, just from a public safety perspective, not even talking about the spiritual significance of them, and they are just not being touched,” Tommy Valentine, director of CatholicVote’s Catholic Accountability Project, told The Daily Signal.
“They’re not being pursued with any diligence by the federal government, and a lot of these are centrally organized by domestic extremist organizations like Jane’s Revenge, like Ruth Sent Us, various anarchist groups that are clearly coordinating at least some of these attacks,” Valentine said.
If any other religion or faith were being targeted like this, multiple federal task forces would set to work, but the DOJ turns a blind eye to attacks against Catholics, he said.
“If we do not receive a response, we will assume the Department of Justice under our second Catholic president intends to continue turning a blind eye to the violence being perpetrated against his fellow Catholics,” CatholicVote’s letter to Clarke concludes.
Mary Margaret Olohan contributed to this report.
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Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell is a reporting fellow for The Daily Signal and co-host of “The Daily Signal Podcast.”
Photo “Wisconsin Family Action Office” by Wisconsin Family Action.
