Thomas More Society Senior Counsel Steve Crampton was speaking on a conference panel on the eve of the 2025 March for Life—seated right next to TMS client Paul Vaughn, a Christian father of eleven who had been convicted on federal charges for peacefully praying outside an abortion facility—when his phone started blowing up. Glancing at the text messages lighting up the screen, he was stunned: “Your clients are getting pardoned!” He broke the news to the assembled crowd, which erupted in applause. Beside him, the weight of a federal conviction was lifted.

“Today, freedom rings in our great nation,” Crampton said. “The heroic pro-lifers unjustly imprisoned by Biden’s Justice Department will now be freed and able to return home to their families.” The road to that moment had been long, painful, and marked by an unprecedented campaign of weaponized federal prosecutions brought under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act.

In the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision in June 2022, the Biden Department of Justice launched a wave of FACE Act prosecutions against peaceful pro-life advocates. Between 1994 and 2024, the Justice Department brought 211 FACE Act cases—205 of them against pro-life activists. During the Biden-Harris administration alone, 24 cases were filed against 55 defendants, while only two cases protected pregnancy centers. Meanwhile, over 100 pro-life pregnancy centers and churches were firebombed or vandalized in the wake of the Dobbs leak, while the DOJ looked the other way.

Thomas More Society’s battle against the Biden-Harris administration’s weaponization of the FACE Act began in earnest on September 23, 2022, when FBI agents descended on the rural Pennsylvania home of Mark Houck, a Catholic father and husband, arresting him at gunpoint as his wife and children watched in terror. The charges stemmed from an incident outside a Philadelphia Planned Parenthood, where Mark had pushed away a clinic escort who was harassing his 12-year-old son. Local authorities had declined to press charges. The DOJ saw an opportunity for a show of force, and TMS defended Mark at trial. On January 30, 2023, after just one hour of deliberation, a federal jury acquitted Mark of all charges. “We took on Goliath—the full might of the United States government—and won,” said Peter Breen, TMS Executive VP and Head of Litigation. The acquittal was a victory, but it made the DOJ hungry to make an example of others.

Months later, Lauren Handy, a dedicated pro-life advocate, went to trial for participating in a rescue at a notorious late-term abortion facility in Washington, D.C.—moved to action after seeing undercover footage of the abortionist admitting to allowing babies to be born alive and left to die. Despite a defense rooted entirely in nonviolence—TMS attorneys told the jury, “There was only one thing around which these people were unified, and that was nonviolence”—the jury convicted Lauren and her co-defendants, additionally finding their actions to be a “crime of violence.” She was immediately hauled out of court in chains and jailed before even being formally sentenced. In May 2024, she received 57 months in federal prison.

Then came the trial of Paul Vaughn, who had been raided by FBI agents at his Tennessee home in October 2022—more than eighteen months after he participated in a peaceful prayer gathering at a Mt. Juliet abortion facility where participants sang hymns, prayed, and offered resource pamphlets. The police negotiator who testified at trial confirmed Paul was “helpful, collaborative, and peaceful.” He was never arrested for trespass. Yet the Biden DOJ charged him with FACE Act violations and “Conspiracy Against Rights” under the Ku Klux Klan Act—a Reconstruction-era law designed to combat lynch mobs and violent terrorism against Black Americans. On January 30, 2024, Paul and five co-defendants were found guilty. He faced up to eleven years in federal prison.

In the weeks leading up to President Trump’s inauguration, Thomas More Society attorneys compiled a comprehensive pardon request package, arguing that the FACE Act convictions were “fatally flawed and plainly unjust.” On January 23, 2025, President Trump granted full and unconditional pardons to 24 peaceful pro-life advocates. Lauren Handy walked free. Paul Vaughn’s conviction was erased. “We thank President Trump for keeping his promise to these pro-life mothers, fathers, grandparents, pastors, and priests,” Breen said.

The pardons brought immediate relief, but a sword of Damocles still hangs over the pro-life movement. “While the Trump Department of Justice has deweaponized the FACE Act, the law’s tentacles stretch beyond the federal government,” explained Andrew Bath, TMS Executive VP and General Counsel. “The FACE Act gives radical pro-abortion state attorneys general the power to take up the mantle of weaponized prosecutions against pro-lifers.”

In Congress, some lawmakers are backing the push to repeal the FACE Act. But until Congress acts, the possibility remains that a future administration could once again weaponize this law against those who peacefully witness for life. “What happened to these peaceful pro-life individuals must never happen again,” Breen urges. “We urge Congress to act swiftly in repealing the FACE Act.”

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Timeline

May 1994 — FACE Act signed into law by President Bill Clinton.

June 2022 — Roe v. Wade overturned by U.S. Supreme Court.

September 2022 — FBI raid and arrest of Mark Houck on FACE Act charges.

October 2022 — FBI raid and arrest of Paul Vaughn on FACE Act and conspiracy charges.

January 2023 — TMS wins Mark Houck’s acquittal at trial.

May 2023 — Houck testifies in Congress against the weaponization of the FACE Act.

August 2023 — TMS defends pro-life advocate Lauren Handy at trial against FACE Act and conspiracy charges. She is immediately jailed following conviction.

January 2024 — TMS defends Paul Vaughn at trial.

May 2024 — Handy is sentenced to 57 months in prison.

July 2024 — No fine, no prison time for Vaughn. Sentenced to supervised release.

December 2024 — Vaughn and TMS Senior Counsel Steve Crampton testify in Congress.

January 2025 — Thomas More Society submits pardon petitions to President-elect Trump for peaceful pro-life advocates targeted by Biden DOJ in weaponized FACE Act prosecutions.

January 23, 2025 — Presidential pardons granted by President Donald Trump for 24 peaceful pro-life advocates.