The FACE Act Was Always A Tool For Two-Tiered Justice

If pro-life activist and father Mark Houck can be arrested and have his house raided by the FBI for shoving a pro-abortionist who repeatedly initiated profanity-laced verbal confrontations with Houck and his son, the 28-year-old man who brutally beat two elderly pro-lifers outside of a Planned Parenthood should get some jail time, right? Wrong.

Surveillance footage of the 2023 attack shows Patrick Brice tackling and repeatedly wailing on two men who were posted oustide of the Baltimore abortion facility advocating and praying for unborn children.

One of the men, 73-year-old Mark Crosby, sustained permanent damage to his right eye and made several subsequent emergency room trips thanks to an orbital fracture dealt by Brice. The other was “knocked unconscious,” Tom Brejcha, president and chief counsel of Thomas More Society, confirmed.

“This was not a minor altercation between two parties with differing views on abortion. It was a vicious, targeted assault on two senior citizens whose only ‘offense’ was praying for expectant mothers and offering life-affirming alternatives to abortion,” Brejcha said in a statement, calling Brice’s actions “cowardice,” “cruelty,” and “sheer mayhem.”

In light of those details, prosecutors asked that Brice be given 10 years in prison after he was convicted on two counts of second-degree assault and reckless endangerment. Instead of jail time, however, Baltimore Circuit Judge Yvette M. Bryant gave the man who “just snapped” on what some media outlets called a “bad day” home detention, three years probation, anger management classes, and therapy.

The pro-life movement is no stranger to violence. Nor is it unfamiliar with a lack of justice and remedy for that violence.

In the wake of the Supreme Court’s leaked Dobbs v. Jackson decision, more than 90 lifesaving pregnancy centers, pro-life organizations, and churches suffered pro-abortion-fueled firebombings, vandalism, and other attacks.

Instead of focusing its attention on these criminal acts, however, the Biden administration honed 55 of its 60 Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE Act) prosecutions on pro-lifers. The years-long campaign to put Americans who prayed, sang, and evangelized at abortion facilities in prison took priority over any accountability for pro-abortion activists. In fact, it spread to states like New York where Attorney General Letitia James targeted Red Rose Rescue sidewalk counselors under both the FACE Act and the New York Clinic Access Act, a state-level “equivalent” to the federal statute.

This dangerous two-tiered version of justice was only partially remedied when President Donald Trump pardoned nearly two dozen of those targeted pro-lifers and issued a memo declaring his administration would only use the FACE Act in “extraordinary circumstances, or in cases presenting significant aggravating factors.”

“When our justice system fails to hold perpetrators like Brice fully accountable, it sends a dangerous message that pro-lifers can be attacked with impunity,” Brejcha said following the sentencing. “This not only jeopardizes the safety of peaceful demonstrators, but it undermines the rule of law and the right to free speech.

Yet, as long as the FACE Act, which many including legal experts understand to be unconstitutional, exists, peaceful pro-lifers like the ones Brice beat are at risk.

Not only could they be targeted by the radical pro-abortion regime obsessed with lawfare, but they could also lose out on justice for the people who violently try to deter them from spreading their lifesaving message.

FACE Act defenders have long claimed the law is necessary to ensure justice against violent actors is equally applied. The application of the FACE Act, however, suggests otherwise.

Thirteen of the 25 Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee voted in June to advance the FACE Act Repeal Act, which seeks to repeal the law the Biden administration weaponized against pro-lifers. Until both chambers of the legislature act on it, and Trump signs it, however, pro-lifers are still vulnerable to further abuse — both legal and physical.

Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on X @jordanboydtx.