Biden’s Pro-Life Political Prisoners Are Finally Free

Today is the annual March for Life Rally in Washington, which I’ll be attending along with pro-life activists from all over the country. It’s easy to forget that our wonderful “pro-life” Republican presidents prior to Donald Trump wouldn’t even show up in person to the March For Life.

Trump was the first president to break that mold, when he became the first sitting president of either party to attend the event in person back in 2020. Then, just two years later, thanks to judges Donald Trump appointed to the Supreme Court, Roe v. Wade was overturned. A generational goal of pro-life activists was finally accomplished — sparing the lives of millions of children.

In the wake of this historic victory, Democrats retaliated. The Biden DOJ commenced a wave of illegitimate prosecutions targeted at peaceful pro-life protesters all over the country, from Washington to Tennessee to Michigan. Here’s how these prosecutions worked. First, the DOJ alleged that the protesters were violating the “FACE Act,” which protects “access” to abortion facilities. Then, the Biden DOJ invoked the “KKK Act,” otherwise known as the “conspiracy against rights” act. That’s a law that has nothing to do with abortion facilities. It’s a Reconstruction-era law that was intended to prevent the KKK from intimidating black people from voting or serving on juries.

By pairing these two laws together, the DOJ was able to pursue felony charges and extremely lengthy prison sentences for these peaceful pro-life demonstrators. Every single person attending one of these protests at an abortion facility could be accused of being a “conspirator” — even if they didn’t step foot in the facility itself. This is a legal approach that was never even considered to be possible when the FACE Act was debated in Congress, back in the early 1990s. In fact, Senator Ted Kennedy explicitly stated at the time that, “if an individual does violate this law for the first time, it is not a felony.”

That would be news to 75-year-old Paulette Harlow. She’s the mother of six children, including four kids she adopted. Harlow was sentenced last summer to 24 months in federal prison for “conspiracy against rights” and Face ACT violations. This is an obviously outrageous sentence that was issued by D.C. Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly. In particular, the judge completely ignored the fact that Harlow was in very poor health. As Harlow’s husband stated during sentencing, “I feel like Paulette is dying. In my heart, I think she’s having a hard time staying alive.”

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Instead of responding to this information in any way, the judge appeared to mock Harlow’s faith, saying she should, “make an effort to remain alive” because that is a “tenet of [Harlow’s] religion.” Paulette Harlow was sentenced to home confinement, until federal officials could find a prison that could handle her medical needs.

Outside the courthouse, Harlow emphasized that she wasn’t violent in any way. And just looking at her, you can tell that she doesn’t deserve to spend 24 months in a federal prison. She’s obviously not a threat to anyone. Watch:

If you can look at that elderly, infirm lady and think that she deserves two years in federal prison for sitting outside of an abortion clinic, then you simply a bad person, if not a lunatic. As Harlow’s lawyers at the Thomas More Society have pointed out, this prosecution gets even more unlawful when you look at the cases the DOJ chose NOT to prosecute over the last four years. 

Specifically, the DOJ failed to prosecute, “almost any of the more than 170 incidents of violence against pro-life pregnancy centers and churches nationwide in the wake of the leak of the Dobbs decision.” There were at least 86 Catholic churches and 74 pregnancy resource centers that were targeted post-Dobbs. One of those resource centers received a threat, “If abortions aren’t safe, neither are you.” And yet, when The Daily Signal reached out to the DOJ and the FBI to see if any of these cases were being investigated, they didn’t get a response.

In other words, the DOJ was clearly targeting pro-life protesters specifically because of their religious beliefs. They were applying the law to different groups of people in different ways. That is unconstitutional. It is unethical. And the point of it was to intimidate pro-lifers into silence. That’s why they arrested these people like they were terrorists. They hit Paul Vaughn’s home like he was bin Laden. Watch:

This was an especially incredible prosecution by the DOJ, because it was clear to everyone Paul Vaughn wasn’t even blocking access to the abortion facility in Mount Juliet, Tennessee. Video evidence proved that. Instead, the DOJ accused Paul Vaughn of “stalling” the police negotiators, outside the facility. So again, they’re treating anyone remotely associated with these protests as a violent terrorist.

But yesterday Donald Trump put an end to these political prosecutions. He signed pardons for nearly two dozen peaceful pro-life demonstrators, including Paulette Harlow and Paul Vaughn. Watch:

Between these pardons and the repeal of Roe, there is now absolutely no question that Trump has done more for the pro-life cause than any other Republican president in history. It’s not even close.

During the campaign, there were some conservatives who doubted that. Some of them even suggested that pro-lifers shouldn’t vote for Donald Trump. But that was always a very bad idea, as I argued at the time — and now everyone can see that. For the first time in history, pro-lifers have a true advocate in the White House. What the hell did George Bush ever do for the pro-life cause? What did Ronald Reagan do? They treated pro-lifers like the red headed step children of the conservative movement. Trump — even though he is personally more moderate on the abortion issue than I am — is actually delivering major wins for the cause.

He actually accomplishes things — things that seemed impossible not too long ago. And he’s not stopping. Donald Trump is now single-handedly reversing a wave of lawfare against pro-lifers who were punished, in cruel and inhumane ways, because of their religious beliefs.

In fact we’ve had so much success on this issue in the last few years that some conservatives think the March For Life is pointless. But events elsewhere in Washington prove otherwise. As you might have heard, every Democrat in the Senate just voted against a measure that would have required doctors to provide life-saving medical treatment to infants born alive after a botched abortion. They’ve temporarily blocked the bill, because in the Senate, as of now, you need 60 votes to clear a filibuster and force a vote. Even the “reasonable Democrats” like noted slob John Fetterman voted in favor of infanticide.

Here’s what Fetterman wrote: “I’ve always stood on the side of Roe and a woman’s right to make her own health care choices. It’s absurd to mandate criminalization because of those choices. Any bill that does so, including the Born-Alive Survivors Protection Act, is a NO from me.”

In other words, he’s saying that women have the right to murder their children even after they’re born. Of course, this is the natural extension of Democrats’ pro-abortion logic. And in this case, he’s just coming right out and saying it. So no, I don’t want to hear another word about so-called “moderate” Democrats. A lot of people have been saying that about Fetterman lately, but there’s no such thing. I don’t know how many times we need to learn this lesson. Even the moderate, mainstream Democrats believe that infant children outside the womb have no inherent right to life.

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If you look at the text of the law, that becomes very clear. Here’s what the law requires: “Any health care practitioner present at the time the child is born alive shall — “(A) exercise the same degree of professional skill, care, and diligence to preserve the life and health of the child as a reasonably diligent and conscientious health care practitioner would render to any other child born alive at the same gestational age; and “(B) following the exercise of skill, care, and diligence required under subparagraph (A), ensure that the child born alive is immediately transported and admitted to a hospital.” And then the law states, “A health care practitioner or any employee of a hospital, a physician’s office, or an abortion clinic who has knowledge of a failure to comply with the requirements of paragraph (1) shall immediately report the failure to an appropriate State or Federal law enforcement agency, or to both.”

This is not some hypothetical scenario. It happens more often than you might think. In Florida, 14 babies were reported to have survived abortions in 2023, and 16 babies survived abortions in 2022. In Michigan, 122 babies were involved in so-called “failed abortions,” and we have no information as to what happened to them afterwards. In Tim Walz’s Minnesota, as we’ve previously discussed, at least five abortions resulted in a live birth in 2021 — and instead of receiving life-saving measures, at least two of those infants received “comfort care.” They soon died. And instead of outlawing this, the state of Minnesota decided to simply stop posting records from these failed abortions. So now they can kill infants and not tell anyone.

On the Senate floor, Chuck Schumer made an attempt to defend infanticide. Here’s how he framed the argument:

First of all, he claims that the bill is redundant. He suggests it’s already illegal to commit infanticide. But as we just established, many states are currently allowing doctors to kill infants after they’re born, by providing them with a lesser standard of care. The doctors are allowed to do this, and no one reports them for it. The law against murder is clearly not being enforced in these contexts. That’s why we need this legislation. It enhances the reporting requirements surrounding this barbarism, so that doctors can’t keep hiding it.

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If you parse what Schumer is saying, he’s trying to argue that some women decide to kill their children when it’s clear that they’re going to have serious, life-altering medical problems. And then when those children manage to survive the abortion, he’s saying we should allow these women to “finish the job,” so to speak. But again, having a life-altering medical problem doesn’t mean you deserve to die. You are entitled to the same degree of care as anyone else with that life-altering medical problem. That’s what the bill requires. What if a four year old child has an accident on the playground and ends up disabled for life? Would it be okay with Chuck if the child’s parents decided to simply suffocate him with a pillow and throw him in a dumpster out back? Apparently so. Because that’s what his own logic would justify.

Democrats’ decision to block this bill proves two things. First of all, it shows that the Democrat Party is still radically, horrifically, satanically extreme — despite whatever concessions to “moderates” they claim to be making. And secondly, it demonstrates that, despite all of our victories in recent days and years, we still have a lot of work to do. The pro-life movement has never had more power than it has right now. And at this moment, after the overt embrace of infanticide that we just saw in Congress, it’s clear that we need to use it.