(LifeSiteNews) — Another batch of peaceful pro-life activists has been sentenced for a sit-in at an abortion facility, this time in Tennessee in a case dating back to 2021.
As previously covered by LifeSiteNews, a total of six pro-life advocates were convicted in January for violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act during a March 2021 peaceful protest at an abortion facility (which has since stopped committing abortions) just outside Nashville, Tennessee.
Videos and other recordings of the protest show pro-lifers standing and sitting inside a hallway of the building, singing hymns, praying, and refusing to leave. Some of the pro-lifers sat in front of doors in a passive effort to prevent employees and patients from proceeding with abortions. On one occasion, the protesters attempted to engage an apparently abortion-seeking woman in conversation about the preciousness of her preborn baby.
In July, Paul Vaughn was sentenced to three years of supervised release, Cal Zastrow to six months in prison, Coleman Boyd to five years of probation, a $10,000 fine, and travel restrictions; and Dennis Green to three years of supervised release, including six months home confinement. The following month, another three convicted in April, James Zastrow, Eva Zastrow, and Paul Place, were sentenced to 90 days in home detention and three years probation.
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Now, the Daily Caller reports, the remaining defendants in the case have been sentenced as well: Chester Gallagher to 16 months in jail, Eva Edl to three years probation, and Heather Idoni (who is already serving a two-year sentence for a similar case out of the nation’s capital) to eight months. Gallagher and Idoni will also have to serve three years of supervised release after their prison sentences are complete.
Gallagher, a 75-year-old retired police officer, was accused of using his law enforcement experience to prolong the “blockade,” including negotiating with police responders and complicating efforts to clear the scene. “This blockade would not have occurred” without Gallagher and his “uniquely concerning role,” the Daily Wire reports Justice Department prosecutor Kyle Boynton as declaring.
In court, Gallagher testified that it was “not enough for me to have sincerely held religious beliefs,” but that he was forced to act both by God and his life’s work. “As a police officer, I cannot walk away from a murder in progress,” he said. He added that he would look at his time in prison as an opportunity to engage in “fruitful ministry.”
Since May 2022, when the U.S. Supreme Court’s intention to overturn Roe v. Wade was first leaked, “there have been at least 236 attacks on Catholic churches and at least 90 attacks on pro-life pregnancy centers,” the Daily Signal reports. Yet the Biden Justice Department “charged only pro-life activists with FACE Act violations in 2022, and has since charged only five individuals with violating the FACE Act by targeting pregnancy centers,” despite the fact that the law ostensibly protects both sides. At the same time, it has aggressively pursued incidents involving pro-lifers, such as Philadelphia sidewalk counselor and Catholic father of seven Mark Houck.