(Headline USA) President Donald Trump announced Thursday he would pardon pro-life activists convicted of blockading abortion clinic entrances.
Trump called it “a great honor to sign this.”
“They should not have been prosecuted,” he said as he signed pardons for “peaceful pro-life protesters.”
The people pardoned were involved in the October 2020 incident at a Washington clinic.
Lauren Handy was sentenced to nearly five years in prison for leading the protest by directing participants to link themselves together with locks and chains to block the clinic’s doors.
Trump pardoned Handy and her nine co-defendants: Jonathan Darnel of Virginia; Jay Smith, John Hinshaw and William Goodman, all of New York; Joan Bell of New Jersey; Paulette Harlow and Jean Marshall, both of Massachusetts; Heather Idoni of Michigan; and Herb Geraghty of Pennsylvania.
In the first week of Trump’s presidency, pro-life advocates have ramped up calls for Trump to pardon protesters charged with violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, which is designed to allow unfettered access to and from abortion clinics.
Trump specifically mentioned Harlow in a June speech criticizing former President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice for pursuing charges against protesters involved in blockades.
“Many people are in jail over this,” he said in June, adding, ”We’re going to get that taken care of immediately.”
Abortion lovers slammed Trump’s pardons as evidence of his opposition to abortion, despite his attempts to find a middle ground on the campaign trail between pro-life allies and those who embrace abortion.
“Donald Trump on the campaign trail tried to have it both ways—bragging about his role in overturning Roe v. Wade while saying he wasn’t going to take action on abortion,” said Ryan Stitzlein, vice president of political and government relations for the pro-abortion activist group Reproductive Freedom for All. “We never believed that that was true, and this shows us that we were right.”
SBA Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser thanked Trump for “immediately delivering on his promise” to pardon the protesters, arguing their prosecutions were political.
The legal group Thomas More Society argued the FACE Act defendants they represent had been “unjustly imprisoned” in a January letter to Trump.
The group had assured the defendants that Trump would review their cases and pardon them when he took office, according to the letter.
.@POTUS @realDonaldTrump The pro-lifers unjustly prosecuted, convicted and many thrown in jail, by the weaponized Biden DOJ, deserve presidential pardons.
Please act on the request of 21 pro-lifers asking for pardons. Our cover letter on their behalf: https://t.co/N7ef7ky8nK pic.twitter.com/ZJisJHFnQ2
— Thomas More Society (@ThomasMoreSoc) January 23, 2025
“Today, freedom rings in our great nation,” Steve Crampton, senior counsel for the Thomas More Society, said Thursday, adding, ”What happened to them can never be erased, but today’s pardons are a huge step towards restoring justice.”
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., among Trump’s most loyal supporters, called the prosecution of anti-abortion protesters “a grotesque assault on the principles of this country” and urged Trump to pardon them while reading the stories of such protesters on the Senate floor Thursday.
He highlighted Eva Edl, who was involved in a 2021 Tennessee clinic blockade and whose story has garnered attention from the largest national pro-life groups.
Hawley said he “had a great conversation” Thursday morning with Trump about the protesters.
I had a great conversation this morning with @realDonaldTrump about the pro-life prisoners unjustly persecuted and imprisoned by the corrupt Biden Administration. I urged him to pardon them swiftly. They have done nothing wrong!
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) January 23, 2025
The news of the pardons comes ahead of Friday’s annual March for Life in Washington, where the president was expected to address the crowd in a video.
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
