Nonviolent direct action has played an essential role in enacting positive social change in the United States and across the globe. It is a unique power to peacefully challenge grave wrongs and bring tension to the surface.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote in his "Letter From a Birmingham Jail" that "Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and establish such creative tension that a community that has consistently refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored."
This nonviolent direct action forced our country to reckon with and take steps to end the horrors of discrimination and segregation. That same passion and energy should be commended when it is used to save mothers and children from abortion.
The Biden administration is now jailing Americans for nonviolent direct action. Read more in my Newsweek op-ed:
https://www.newsweek.com/bidens-justice-department-unjustly-persecutes-pro-life-activists-opinion-1826469
The FACE Act, or Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, was designed to levy unusually draconian punishments against pro-life activists in particular. Imagine making Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s nonviolent direct actions—such as sit-ins—a federal crime, and declaring his work in concert with other civil rights activists a conspiracy punishable by a decade or more in prison. That absurd notion should upset our consciences.
The FACE Act allows judges to impose fines of up to $10,000 and six months of prison on first-time protesters engaging in nonviolent physical obstruction, such as sit-ins or blockades. Second convictions for these kinds of acts could see fines of up to $25,000 and jail time of up to 18 months.
Additionally, the FACE Act allows federal conspiracy charges to be brought against defendants alongside the FACE Act violation itself. That means, in cases like the Surgi-Clinic one, defendants are charged with violating the FACE Act and conspiracy to violate the FACE Act, which carries a massive 10-year potential prison sentence on its own. These activists—who are dedicated to protecting human life—are now facing 11 years in federal prison if they receive the maximum sentence.
While the FACE Act itself is an unjust law, this trial in particular was overseen by an ideologically pro-abortion judge who did not conduct herself in a fair or impartial manner. To understand one egregiously biased decision this judge made, consider the Live Action investigation of the abortion facility these activists chose to protest.