Three more pro-lifers sentenced under FACE Act for Tennessee rescue action

The final three pro-lifers convicted on charges of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act and conspiracy against rights for a rescue action at a Tennessee abortion facility were sentenced this week.

Chester (Chet) Gallagher, Heather Idoni, and Eva Edl were convicted for their role in an incident in which they protested by sitting in front of the main door of a Carafem abortion facility in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee, in 2021. The incident has been described as “peaceful and not aggressive.”

The FACE Act “prohibits threats of force, obstruction and property damages intended to interfere with reproductive health care services.” Under the Biden administration, this charge has been used extensively to target pro-life activists. The federal ‘conspiracy against rights’ conviction prohibits two or more people from “conspiring to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States…” As Live Action News previously reported, this is a new charge that some say has been “twisted” to use against pro-lifers.

READ: Defendants speak out after one-year anniversary of FACE Act convictions

On September 27, U.S. District Judge Aleta Trauger sentenced Gallagher to 16 months in prison, while Idoni received eight months in prison. Idoni’s sentence will run concurrently with a two-year sentence she is currently serving for a rescue action at a notorious Washington, D.C., abortion facility in 2020. Idoni’s treatment since her incarceration has been shocking; she was previously placed in solitary confinement and shackled as if she were a violent offender, despite having only participated in non-violent pro-life work.

On September 26, U.S. Magistrate Judge Jeffery S. Frensley sentenced Edl, an 89-year-old survivor of a communist prison camp, to three years of probation.

In August, Gallagher, Idoni, and Edl, along with others, were also found guilty in federal court of conspiracy against rights and violations against the FACE Act for an August 2020 rescue action at Northland Family Planning Clinic, an abortion facility in Sterling Heights, Michigan.

In total, 11 pro-life activists were convicted for participating in the Carafem abortion rescue. Gallagher, Idoni, and Edl were the final defendants to be sentenced, as the others received sentencing earlier this year.

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