Attacks on pro-life groups, churches continue after DOJ arrests pro-life activists: list

As the pro-life movement expresses outrage over the arrest of pro-life activist Mark Houck, attacks on pro-life pregnancy centers and churches continue in the United States nearly four months after the U.S. Supreme Court determined that the U.S. Constitution does not contain the right to an abortion.

The FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice have faced harsh criticism from the pro-life movement in the past three weeks for an early-morning raid on the Pennsylvania home of Mark Houck. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania announced on Sept. 23 that it had arrested Houck for violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act. The raid took place earlier that morning.

The DOJ contends that Houck “is alleged to have twice assaulted a man because he was a volunteer reproductive health care clinic escort.” According to the federal agency, “the defendant forcefully shoved” the clinic escort to the ground on two separate occasions at a Philadelphia Planned Parenthood clinic on Oct. 13, 2021, one of which required him to receive “medical attention.”

However, a fundraiser set up to raise money for the Houck family insists that the clinic escort was harassing Mark’s 12-year-old son as they prayed outside the clinic: “They walked down the street away from the entrance to the building. The escort followed them, and when he continued yelling at Mark’s son, Mark pushed him away.”

The arrest of Houck for violating the FACE Act, which subjects anyone who “intentionally injures, intimidates, or interferes with or attempts to injure, intimidate or interfere with any person” seeking to “provide reproductive health services” to federal charges, prompted backlash from the pro-life community. If convicted, Houck faces up to 11 years in prison.

Following Houck’s indictment, Bill Donohue of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights wrote a letter to Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, the leading Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee. In the letter, Donohue wrote that “there seems to be much interest in pursuing alleged wrongdoing by pro-life activists, yet little interest in pursuing alleged wrongdoing by abortion-rights activists.”…(Excerpt from The Christian Post)