(LifeSiteNews) — To date over 14,000 people have signed a LifeSite petition asking Donald Trump to grant a full pardon to all imprisoned pro-lifers, and in September 2023 the president-elect promised to “review the cases of every political prisoner … unjustly persecuted by the Biden administration” and “sign their pardons or commutation on Day One.”
Today LifeSiteNews is calling upon President Trump to remember his promise and set the captives free.
“Marxists and Stalinists in the administration got a Washington, D.C., jury to convict five pro-life activists who are now facing up to 11 years in prison for simple acts of protest,” Trump said during a speech at the 2023 Pray Vote Stand Summit on Friday, September 15, 2023.
He was referring to pro-life activists Lauren Handy, John Hinshaw, William Goodman, Heather Idoni, and Herb (Rosemary) Geraghty, who were charged and found guilty on August 29, 2023, of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act and conspiracy against rights for blocking access to the Washington Surgi-Clinic abortion mill in Washington, D.C., in October 2020 in their effort to save children from abortion.
On the day of Trump’s speech, pro-life rescuers Joan Andrews Bell, 74; Jonathan Darnel, 40; and Jean Marshall, 72, were found guilty of the same charges in connection to their involvement in the same rescue.
One of the convicted pro-lifers, Lauren Handy, had discovered the remains of roughly 100 aborted children, including five extremely late-term babies, from a discarded box from Cesare Santangelo’s facility and reported it to the Washington D.C. Police homicide unit only days before she and her fellow pro-life defendants were arrested.
It was later suggested by member of the left-wing secular pro-life group to which Handy belongs (PAAU) that the Department of Justice persecution was an attempt to cover-up illegal acts by Santangelo.
During his 2023 speech, Trump alluded to the fact that pro-lifers and conservatives in general have faced a barrage of unjust prosecution under the Biden administration.
“Under Biden, others are being sentenced to 10, 15, and even 20 years in prison for retribution for their political beliefs, while Antifa and other groups burn-down cities like Portland, like Minneapolis. … They kill people, they loot, they plunder, and they go free,” Trump said.
“To reverse these cruel travesties of justice, tonight I’m announcing that the moment I win the election, I will appoint a special task force to rapidly review the cases of every political prisoner who’s been unjustly persecuted by the Biden administration … so that I can study the situation very quickly and sign their pardons or commutations on Day One,” Trump said.
“Never again will the federal government be used to target religious believers.”
“It was God-fearing patriots like you who built this country, and it is God-fearing patriots like you who are going to save our country,” Trump added. “Americans of faith are not a threat to our country; Americans of faith are the soul of our country.”
“The radical left is coming after all of us, because they know that our allegiance is not to them; our allegiance is to our country and to our Creator,” Trump said.
In response to the imprisonment of these pro-lifers, who are not even all the pro-lifers currently behind bars or under house arrest, and buoyed by President Trump’s promise, LifeSiteNews published a petition in March 2024 asking the then-candidate to do the following:
- Grant a full pardon of all charges and convictions of the arrested pro-lifers, which will immediately release them and protect them from any attached penalties.
- Pledge to de-federalize prosecution of pro-life rescuers.
- Never allow any DOJ and FBI employee who had anything to do with pro-life persecutions to hold a job in Federal Law Enforcement again, including agents who conducted raids by “obeying orders” and thus showing themselves unfit to wield such power.
This week LifeSiteNews received a message from one of the pro-life prisoners, Jonathan Darnel, indicating that he would be “elated” if Donald Trump was elected again and writing that the president had promised “several times … to release all anti-abortion rescuers incarcerated for violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act.”
“That means, God willing, I could be home by February to help my family during an especially difficult time and return to the incredibly vital work of abolishing child killing.”