Donald Trump pardons anti-abortion demonstrators who blockaded clinic
President Donald Trump pardoned 23 anti-abortion demonstrators, including some people who blockaded the entrances to an abortion clinic.
Straight Arrow News
Calling their prosecutions “ridiculous,” President Donald Trump on Thursday pardoned 23 anti-abortion activists who were convicted of blocking access to reproductive health clinics, including four Michigan demonstrators who prevented a woman whose fetus had fatal abnormalities and whose own health was at risk, from entering a Sterling Heights clinic in 2020.
A federal jury convicted the Michigan activists in August over their activities, which included physically blocking patient and employee entrances and refusing to obey police orders to leave. While all faced prison for their crimes — none have yet been sentenced — they were spared that fate after a Catholic public-interest law firm called the Thomas More Society intervened on their behalf earlier this month, and requested presidential pardons, which were granted.
“They should not have been prosecuted. Many of them are elderly people. …This is a great honor to sign this,” Trump said from the Oval Office, where he held up his signed executive order pardoning the convicted activists. “They’ll be very happy.”
Trump then stated: “So, they’re all in prison now.”
His press secretary corrected him, saying “some are, some are out of custody.”
“It’s ridiculous,” Trump quipped, shaking his head.
Among those pardoned are Heather Idoni, a 59-year-old bookstore owner from Linden who had been charged three times in three years over her anti-abortion activities, including a 2021 incident when she used a bike lock to chain herself in front of a door to a Saginaw clinic. She was convicted over that incident under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act.
Under that same law, Idoni also was convicted in a federal trial in Detroit last summer, when a jury concluded she and six others unlawfully blockaded a Sterling Heights reproductive health clinic in 2020 — an incident they promoted on social media and then livestreamed for the world to see.
“We’re in Sterling Heights, outside of the murder mill, to save children,” one of the defendants livestreamed to a social media account on Aug. 27, 2020.
Among the patients the group kept out was a woman who had made an appointment at the clinic with her husband after learning that her fetus suffered fatal abnormalities, and that attempting to continue carrying the pregnancy carried serious risks to her health and fertility.
“These defendants intentionally broke the law. One woman’s fetus experienced fatal abnormalities and the defendants’ coordinated campaign of physical obstruction posed a grave and real threat to her health and fertility,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke said following the convictions. “Make no mistake: Every American enjoys the right to obtain and provide reproductive health services free from physical obstruction, and the Justice Department will continue to hold accountable those that oppress the free exercise of that right.”
Idoni, though, didn’t see it that way, and accused the Justice Department of “overreaching” and charging crimes that wreaked of “vindictiveness”
“I am not surprised,” Idoni wrote to the Free Press in 2023 following her indictment. “I had a heads-up this was coming and it was obvious they have been investigating further back in time to prosecute myself and other peaceful, non-violent Christians to the fullest.”
In addition to Michigan, Idoni also was charged in Washington D.C. and Tennessee over similar activities outside reproductive health clinics. Despite her legal troubles, however, she previously vowed to continue to protest such clinics.
She offered an analogy: Someone may choose not to swim in a pool if it had a “no trespassing” sign. But if “we heard the sounds of a child drowning we would jump that fence in a heartbeat,” Idoni said.
The other Michigan residents pardoned by Trump are: Calvin Zastrow, Joel Curry, Justin Phillips and Eva Zastrow. Their attorneys were not readily available for comment.
All were indicted in the Sterling Heights incident eight months after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in a historic ruling that nixed national abortion rights and left the divisive and emotional issue up to the states to decide.
Since then, however, the controversy over abortion rights has only escalated. And Trump’s latest pardons may have raised the temperature if Planned Parenthood’s response is any indication.
“Yet again Donald Trump has pardoned convicted criminals — this time nearly two dozen individuals who have used violence to either harass, intimidate, or even prevent people from accessing needed health care, including at Planned Parenthood health centers,” Krista Noah, National Director of Affiliate Security and Response Planning at Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a statement following news of Trump’s pardons. “Not even a week into his presidency, Donald Trump has disregarded the law and greenlit violence against abortion providers, all at the expense of people who wish to live in peace and safely exercise the reproductive freedom they deserve.”
The pardoned defendants were charged under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, which was passed by Congress in 1994 in response to an increase in violence toward patients and providers of reproductive health centers. The act makes it illegal to block or hinder access to clinics that offer reproductive health services, including abortions.
But supporters of the anti-abortion activists maintain the Department of Justice under President Joe Biden went too far in punishing what they maintain are “peaceful” demonstrators expressing their constitutional rights to freely express their religious beliefs.
As the Thomas More Society put it in its letter to Trump seeking pardons, “these pro-life Americans are deserving of full and unconditional pardons.”
After the group’s wish was granted, Thomas More Society attorneys called on Congress to repeal the FACE Act, and thanked Trump for “keeping his promise to these pro-life mothers, fathers, grandparents, pastors, and priests.”
“Today is a new day for the pardoned pro-life advocates who have suffered FBI raids, federal prosecutions and severe punishment for peacefully and courageously witnessing for life,” Peter Breen, Thomas More Society Executive Vice President and head of litigation, said in a statement. “What happened to these peaceful pro-life individuals must never happen again.”
But some of their activities were far from peaceful, if court records, FBI investigations, social media posts, and the Department of Justice are any indication.
For example, in a 2020 incident at a Washington D.C., reproductive health clinic, activists forced their way inside and used chains, ropes and locks to blockade the facility where a pregnant woman collapsed in pain after the activists refused to let her inside. According to federal prosecutors, the woman was experiencing labor pains and needed immediate medical attention, but the activists refused her access. A nurse also sprained her ankle after having to force her way inside, while another patient had to climb through a receptionist window to access the clinic.
All seven defendants who took part in that blockade were convicted and received prison sentences ranging from 21 months to almost five years for acts that prosecutors argued were not peaceful, but rather violent and forceful.
“These defendants conspired to use force to prevent fellow citizens from exercising rights protected by law,” U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves for the District of Columbia said following the defendants’ sentencings last year. “People cannot resort to using force and intimidation to prevent others from engaging in lawful activity simply because they disagree with the law.”
Contact Tresa Baldas: tbaldas@freepress.com
