NASHVILLE, Tennessee (LifeSiteNews) — Four pro-life activists were convicted on Tuesday of misdemeanor Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act violations due to their participation in a peaceful protest and blockade at an abortion facility just outside Nashville, Tennessee, on March 5, 2021.
Eva Edl, 87, Eva Zastrow, 24, James Zastrow, 25, and Paul Place, 24, face up to six months in prison and thousands of dollars in fines upon their sentencing, which will take place on July 30. The verdict from a federal judge in Nashville comes in spite of the fact that over a year later, the abortion mill, Carafem Health Center Clinic in Mt. Juliet, was forced to stop committing abortions to comply with Tennessee’s pro-life legislation after the June 2022 overturn of Roe v. Wade.
The case has been prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Tennessee and the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Civil Rights Division, according to the DOJ.
During the blockade, documented in a video posted to Facebook, Edl, who is a survivor of a communist concentration camp, sat in a wheelchair in front of the door to the abortion facility. Place and Eva Zastrow sat next to Edl, while the remainder of the group gathered along the sides of the hallway outside the facility.
The video shows the pro-lifers praying and singing worship songs together and multiple police officers asking them to leave. Many of the pro-lifers refused to do so, leading to their arrests.
One officer who asked the pro-lifers to leave appeared sympathetic to their cause. The organizer of the protest, Chester Gallagher, tried to explain to the officer why their moral obligation to protect innocent life came before their obligation to the law.
“Inside of that door are murderers, paid baby-killers,” he told the officer. “As you’ve already experienced coming down this hallway, [there] was a mother carrying an innocent child who is [t]o be ripped from her mother’s womb inside that place.”
Edl’s attorney reportedly attested that the group was present in order to “pray and sing and worship” as well as persuade women not to go through with abortions. The defendants’ lawyers generally pointed out that there was no proof the group had actually prevented anyone from entering the facility and that they did not obstruct the activities of the facility’s employees.
Seven other pro-lifers present that day were charged not only with a misdemeanor under the FACE Act, but with a felony charge of “conspiracy against rights,” and face up to 11 years in prison.
One of these seven, Caroline Davis, who pleaded guilty of the charges in 2023, has been instrumental in helping the Department of Justice bring a case against the pro-lifers after she accepted a plea deal and agreed to testify for the government. She faced a maximum 33-year jail term for her involvement in three FACE Act cases.
When asked by one attorney why she took the plea agreement, Davis reportedly said, “I don’t want to go to jail. I’ve had a change of heart. I’ve seen the light. I don’t believe that my religious beliefs supersede the law. I believe I was part of a cult – that I jumped on board to become a martyr. Nothing good comes from rescues.”
“Anyone who protests in a rescue are all cult members,” she added.
Davis previously testified against defendants in a separate Washington, D.C., rescue as well, which saw all participants charged with FACE Act violations and immediately incarcerated.
In a comment on the prosecution of the six other pro-lifers present that day who were hit with federal charges, Republican U.S. Sen. Mike Lee of Utah accused the Biden administration of having a double standard regarding the FACE Act, which is ostensibly meant to protect pro-life pregnancy centers and churches in addition to abortion facilities.
“[T]he Biden administration incarcerates people for praying at abortion clinics while ignoring violent acts at churches and pregnancy centers,” Sen. Lee said on X. “So many camels. So much obsessive attention paid to harmless things mistaken for gnats.”
Republicans concerned about the Biden administration’s focus on pro-life advocates to the exclusion of pro-abortion and anti-Christian activists led the GOP majority in the U.S. House of Representatives to create a “Weaponization of Government” Select Committee in January 2023 to investigate instances of FBI and other federal intelligence agencies’ meddling in domestic politics, including the use of the FACE Act to arrest pro-lifers like Mark Houck.
Many Republican lawmakers and others have charged that the Biden administration has “selectively enforced” the FACE Act to go after pro-lifers while failing to prosecute the more than 100 attacks on pro-life pregnancy centers and churches since the U.S. Supreme Court’s draft decision overturning Roe v. Wade was leaked.