Pro-life activists face up to 11 years in prison after conviction over prayer vigil outside abortion clinic

Six pro-life activists face up to 11 years in prison after a Nashville jury found them guilty on Tuesday of conspiracy and violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act over their peaceful protest outside of an abortion clinic in March 2021. 

The charges were brought by President Joe Biden's Department of Justice. 

The six defendants are Chet Gallagher, Coleman Boyd, Heather Idoni, Cal Zastrow, Dennis Green, and Paul Vaughn. They are accused in the charging documents of using social media to organize a blockade at the entrance of an abortion clinic in Mount Juliet. 

Video footage of the protest shows the group peacefully praying and singing Christian hymns in the hallway outside the clinic's doors. 

The defendants were later targeted and arrested by the FBI for "conspiracy against rights secured by the FACE Act, and committing FACE Act violations." 

The Justice Department issued a release in Oct. 2022 that states: "Gallagher utilized social media to promote a series of anti-abortion events scheduled for March 4-7, 2021, in the Nashville area.  Other co-conspirators then utilized Facebook to coordinate travel and logistics and to identify other participants for the blockade." 

"In his social media post, Gallagher referred to the blockade as a 'rescue,'" the release states. "Boyd also began a Facebook livestream broadcast of the clinic blockade at 7:45 a.m. on March 5, 2021. This livestream broadcast was titled, in part, 'Mt. Juliet, TN Rescue March 5, 2021,' and livestreamed the blockade event as his co-conspirators and others blocked the clinic’s entry doors and prevented a patient and an employee from entering." 

"The livestream also broadcast members of the group attempting to engage a patient and her companion as Boyd told his livestream audience that the patient was a 'mom coming to kill her baby,'" according to the release. 

Video footage obtained by the Daily Signal shows FBI agents arriving at the home of defendant Paul Vaughn. Federal authorities placed him in handcuffs and took him into custody. 

Vaughn told the outlet that the FBI arrived at his home with "guns pointed at the door, banging on the house, yelling and screaming, ‘Open up. FBI,’ that kind of thing. When I opened the door and saw the guns pointed at me, I asked them what they wanted, who they were looking for, and they said they wanted me." 

"I had kids in the yard walking out to get in the car to go to school, I was about to take them to school, and other kids in the house," he said. "So, seeing that the easiest path to de-escalation was me in handcuffs, I stepped outside and put an end to the ranting and the banging and the yelling." 

Vaughn was represented by Thomas More Society attorneys in March, who argued that the Department of Justice under President Biden has exhibited a consistent tendency to selectively enforce the FACE Act against individuals who are pro-life. 

Vaughn's attorneys petitioned the court to vacate the indictment levied by the DOJ on the grounds of selective prosecution. They contended that the FACE Act, which regulates speech based on content and violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the free exercise clause of the First Amendment, is an unconstitutional regulation. 

"Defendants submit that the government has engaged in selective and/or vindictive prosecution motivated by an intent to punish defendants for the content of their viewpoints and their protected expressions thus making this case an unconstitutional application of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act," the filing states, according to the Daily Signal. 

"In addition, FACE is an unconstitutional content-based regulation of speech; as applied, it violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, as well as the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment; and this court lacks jurisdiction because, especially after the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, FACE is an invalid exercise of Congress’ Commerce Clause authority," it continues. 

Furthermore, the court filing adds that the Justice Department arrested Vaughn "and ten other defendants into court for a single alleged nonviolent violation" of the FACE Act “with over 170 uncharged incidents of destruction and vandalism at pro-life centers and churches across the country." 

"The DOJ has demonstrated clear and illegal hostility toward the pro-life viewpoint in its statements and enforcement decisions, running roughshod over fundamental religious freedoms and free speech rights, and bringing an illegal selective prosecution here,” the filing alleges.