On April 14, the Department of Justice published an 882 page report claiming that the enforcement of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act was “weaponized” under the Biden administration. FACE is a longstanding federal law designed to protect access to reproductive healthcare by prohibiting obstruction, threats, and violence directed at abortion providers, clinics and patients.
The report outlines steps the Trump administration is taking to “rectify these wrongs,” including pardoning 23 anti-abortion extremists charged and convicted under the Biden DOJ and issuing a directive that severely limits enforcement of FACE. Under this guidance, DOJ prosecutors may bring abortion-related civil actions or prosecutions only in “extraordinary circumstances” or in cases involving “significant aggravating factors” — such as death.
Characterizing the enforcement of FACE as politically motivated is an attempt to undermine protections for reproductive healthcare and disregard the legal standards applied in these cases and the courts that have consistently upheld them. As former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance wrote, the report is “politics in the guise of prosecution,” aimed at justifying pardons for individuals who harassed patients and attacked clinics while appealing to a political base.
Signed into law by President Clinton in 1994, FACE has been instrumental in countering anti-abortion violence. The law prohibits the use of physical force, threats of force, or physical obstruction intended to injure, intimidate, or interfere with anyone obtaining or providing reproductive health services. It also applies to any person who is exercising their right of religious freedom at a place of religious worship. Congress passed the law in direct response to escalating violence against abortion providers throughout the 1970s, 80s, and early 90s. FACE was enacted shortly after the murder of Dr. David Gunn outside a clinic in Florida in 1993.
FACE exists to protect patients and providers, not to serve a political agenda. Yet, the report fails to acknowledge the very real and ongoing threats to abortion providers and patients.
“The FACE Act was passed overwhelmingly by a bipartisan Congress (the House vote was 237-169 and the Senate vote 69-30) to address the scourge of shootings, bombings, blockades, butyric acid attacks and death threats against abortion providers and clinics in this country. It was explicitly designed to prosecute individuals obstructing access to reproductive health care facilities and committing violence against providers and patient communities,” said Feminist Majority Foundation National Clinic Access Project Director, duVergne Gaines. “The individuals brought to justice under the FACE Act by veteran DOJ prosecutors, and subsequently pardoned by President Trump, broke the law and terrorized clinics, plain and simple.”
As Joyce Vance noted, “you can’t manufacture cases and then obtain convictions, and the Biden DOJ did obtain convictions, in virtually all of the cases.” If these charges were baseless, the juries would not have convicted the defendants. The criminal justice system functioned as intended.
“Violence targeting clinics, staff and patients, and legislators supporting reproductive and civil rights, is on the rise. In the last year and a half alone, anti-abortion arson attacks against clinics increased with devastating violence in Cincinnati, Ohio just last week. Last month, a man was arrested for planning the murder, and nearly carrying it out, of a Missoula physician at his home. This administration and its DOJ are responsible for turning civil rights laws upside down and creating an environment of impunity for anti-abortion extremists,” continued Gaines.
In the report, the DOJ states that the “Biden DOJ closely collaborated with pro-abortion groups to track pro-life activists” and “compiled evidence and dossiers that ultimately gave rise to search warrants and charges.” The Feminist Majority Foundation, Planned Parenthood, and the National Abortion Federation were the organizations named in the report. But this characterization distorts standard law enforcement practice. Any citizen or organization is able to share information with law enforcement regarding the commission of crimes and threats of crimes.
Since the Dobbs decision in 2022, anti-abortion violence has been on the rise. According to the National Abortion Federation, there were 777 incidents of obstruction, 621 incidents of trespassing, and 296 death threats reported across 2023 and 2024 alone. Despite the documented increase in violence, the DOJ report claims that the Biden DOJ unfairly targeted anti-abortion extremists, while ignoring vandalism and attacks against pregnancy resource centers or houses of worship.
“It should not be lost on the American public that on the same day the DOJ issued this disgraceful ‘report,’ it moved to dismiss, with prejudice and without explanation, the hard-won seditious conspiracy convictions of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys as being ‘in the interest of justice.’”
The true “weaponization” is the effort to weaken the protections for patients and providers while dismissing the very harsh reality of anti-abortion violence. FACE has been upheld by courts for decades and enforced by the DOJ under both Republican and Democratic Administrations, including Trump in his first term. This latest shameful act by the DOJ underscores the urgent need for state legislatures, particularly where abortion remains accessible, to pass state-level FACE Act equivalents where they do not yet exist. It also highlights the responsibility of state Attorneys General nationwide to step up and pursue civil enforcement of the federal FACE Act, as the law permits.
This isn’t about politics; it’s about enforcing laws that allow people to safely access healthcare without fear of harassment or harm.
