What Does it Mean to Be Pro-Life Today?
Are you come out as against a robber with swords and staves to apprehend me? I was daily with you in the temple teaching, and you did not lay hands on me.
Mark 14: 48-49
If you have been following the news recently, you probably learned that, in late September, 20 to 25 armed FBI agents, weapons drawn, raided the home of Mark Houck, a Catholic pro-life activist. He was arrested in his own home, in front of his wife and seven young children.
The reason? He has been indicted for a federal crime under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE Act), a law which makes it a federal crime to block access to an abortion clinic, or to “use force with the intent to injure, intimidate and interfere with” anyone who provides “reproductive” services.
According to reports, the incident that is at the center of this charge happened one year ago. A volunteer escort for abortion patients repeatedly verbally assaulted Mr. Houck’s 12-year old son, who accompanied his father when he went to pray outside an abortion clinic in Pennsylvania. Mr. Houck finally had enough of the man yelling vulgar things in his young son’s face and shoved him back. The man fell and hurt his finger, which required a band-aid. The event was so inconsequential that local authorities, including a progressive prosecutor, did not even bother filing misdemeanor charges against Mr. Houck, and when the escort tried to sue Mr. Houck in civil court, the man who brought the suit did not even show up. The case was thrown out.
This minor dust-up, provoked by the abortion clinic worker, has now resulted in the United States Department of Justice bringing the full force of the federal government’s law enforcement arm against Mr. Houck, who is now facing two federal felony charges.
But it appears that this arrest was just the beginning of a campaign by the federal government against pro-life activists. On October 5, the Department of Justice sent more teams of armed FBI agents to arrest 11 more pro-life activists, ranging in age from 24 to 87. Their crime? Again, the FACE Act. But even more, several of these individuals are charged with criminal “conspiracy” to violate the FACE Act, because they planned their pro-life protest over the social media platform facebook. If convicted, these “co-conspirators” are facing 11 years in federal prison and over $250,000 in fines.
But the federal government is not finished pursuing its pro-life persecutions. The Department of Justice recently indicted yet another man, Hugh Geraghty. His story is a little different, in that he is an atheist pro-life activist, whose social and political views are very much at odds with many of the Christian pro-life activists with which he has found common ground in the cause of life. He is part of a group called the Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising (PAAU), and he was indicted for protesting outside of the Washington Surgi-Center in Washington DC in October of 2020 – two full years ago.
Perhaps what is really at the heart of his recent arrest, however, is that in March, PAAU recovered the remains of 115 aborted babies of the Washington Surgi-Center from a whistleblower working for Curtis Bay Medical Waste Services. Among the “waste”, PAAU discovered five fully developed babies, whom they believe were illegally aborted or born alive and left to die. PAAU has been demanding an investigation into these horrific deaths, but, thus far, despite the fact that the bodies of these babies are now in the custody of police, no arrests have been made and, more pointedly, it seems that the center is not even being investigated.
The Department of Justice issued press releases to trumpet its arrests of these pro-life activists. In sharp contrast, to date, the Department of Justice has not acknowledged making any arrests whatsoever related to the vandalism, theft, and fire-bombings of pro-life pregnancy centers. These centers, under the express terms of the law, are also protected by the FACE Act. Since May, at least 54 pregnancy centers have been attacked in the United States.
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We are sorry to report that ProLife Doc is no stranger to the threats that face those who speak out for the cause of life. The existence of such threats, by itself, reflects a dismaying state of affairs that now seems firmly embedded into the fraying social fabric of this country.
As intimidating as these recent events may seem, what pro-abortion forces fail to grasp is that these actions are unlikely to dissuade ProLife Doc or any other pro-life advocates from their work, even when undertaken by our own government. If anything, they will fortify it.
Blessed are they that suffer persecution for justice sake:
For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew 5:10
To donate to ProLife Doc’s ministry, or just to learn more about the work ProLife Doc is doing and about how medical science is making great strides in taking care of the pre-born, contact ProLife Doc today.
