Why Does the DOJ Have Double Standards?

The topic of discussion for this Freedom Friday is the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) double standard on the way that it prosecuted abortion clinic protesters. CatholicVote is an organization that keeps records of attacks on pro-life pregnancy centers and churches. The organization is urging the Justice Department to investigate more than 400 attacks that have taken place since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022. According to Elizabeth Mitchell, the organization requested a meeting to “discuss probes of pro-abortion violations of the FACE Act in a letter to Kristen Clarke, Assistant Attorney General. 

“The [Biden] administration has repeatedly met and coordinated with the abortion industry, but has refused to meet with representatives of the millions of pro-life Americans and concerned Catholic citizens who are being threatened and intimidated across the country,” CatholicVote President Brian Burch writes in the letter to Clarke.

The FACE Act prohibits “threats of force, obstruction and property damage intended to interfere with reproductive health care services.” The 1994 law protects abortion clinics and pro-life pregnancy centers.

The Justice Department, however, has used the law to charge pro-life activists with FACE Act violations in the months since June 2022, when the Supreme Court overturned its 1973 Roe ruling and ended abortion on demand across the nation.

Burch’s letter, dated June 21, asks Clarke why the DOJ disproportionally prosecutes pro-lifers for alleged violations of the FACE Act when the department apparently hasn’t prosecuted anyone for 439 attacks on pro-life Catholic churches since 2020.

“Nearly every single prosecution of alleged violence against abortion clinics has involved application of the FACE Act despite the lack of enforcement on attacks against churches and pregnancy resource centers,” Burch writes. “What policies are in place at the DOJ which contribute to this imbalance, and what is being done to rectify it?” …

This was CatholicVote’s first communication with the DOJ in over two years, the organization says, despite several outreach attempts.