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For more than 30 years, there has been a federal law on the books known as the FACE Act. It prohibits intentional interference with people either providing or receiving reproductive health care services, including abortions. Now the Justice Department says it is sharply scaling back enforcement of that law. NPR justice correspondent Ryan Lucas looked into what this means for people on both sides of the abortion issue.
RYAN LUCAS, BYLINE: In late August of 2021, Phoebe Brandt was seeing patients at a Planned Parenthood facility in Philadelphia, where she works as a nurse practitioner. At a certain point that morning, she stopped by the front office and was told that a man had barricaded himself in one of the clinic's bathrooms.
PHEBE BRANDT: I mean, at that very moment, we really didn't know what was going on. We didn't know if he was armed. We didn't know if he had a bomb on him. It was very scary just because we didn't know what was happening.
LUCAS: The clinic had to be evacuated. The man holed up in the bathroom was an anti-abortion activist named Matthew Connolly. He wasn't armed, but court papers say he refused to leave even after the police came. Eventually, a SWAT team broke down the door and took him away. Connolly's actions, though, forced the clinic to shut down for the day.
BRANDT: We had patients who had been in the middle of their visit who were standing around hoping to get back in, who were told, we're sorry, you have to go home. And then all of the other patients for the day had to be called and told not to come in.
LUCAS: Federal prosecutors brought a civil case under the FACE Act against Connolly, seeking to impose financial penalties and deter future violations, one of several such cases the Justice Department brought under the Biden administration. Now the Trump administration has moved to undo all of that. The Justice Department's new leadership says it will only enforce violations of the FACE Act in extraordinary circumstances, such as death or serious property damage. Local authorities can handle anything short of that.
The department also dropped three pending FACE Act cases, including the one against Connolly. President Trump, meanwhile, pardoned 23 people convicted of violating the FACE Act. Abortion providers, including Brandt, think this gives a green light to anyone who wants to disrupt clinics in the future.
BRANDT: It basically tells them that there will be no consequences for them to come into our centers, disrupting, then potentially even be violent.
LUCAS: The FACE Act was passed by Congress in 1994 with bipartisan support to prevent rising violence against abortion clinics and providers, including the 1993 murder of Dr. David Gunn by an anti-abortion extremist.
MELISSA FOWLER: The FACE Act has been incredibly effective at curbing some of the major types of violence and obstruction that we saw really escalating in the early '90s.
LUCAS: That's Melissa Fowler from the National Abortion Federation. She says enforcement of the FACE Act has varied over the years, with Democratic administrations generally being seen as more active than Republican ones. But the Trump administration's decision to sharply limit enforcement of it, she says, is unprecedented.
FOWLER: It really shouldn't take an abortion provider being murdered for the federal government to enforce a law that has been effective at keeping providers safe and helping people access care.
LUCAS: For opponents of abortion, though, the department's decision is a source of optimism.
MONICA MILLER: That decision is very much welcomed.
LUCAS: Monica Miller is the director of Citizens For A Pro-Life Society. She also was a defendant in one of the federal cases recently dropped by the Justice Department.
MILLER: I've always felt very deeply that this was a flawed law. It was unfair. It went after a particular social justice group for higher penalties.
LUCAS: Some abortion opponents have called for a renewed push to disrupt clinics in light of the new FACE Act charging policy. For her part, Miller says the department's approach will make it easier to conduct disruptive actions at clinics. But she says activists can still face legal consequences under state law, so it's too soon to say how big of an effect it will have. Either way, abortion providers say they are already bracing for more activity and hostility at their clinics.
Ryan Lucas, NPR News, Washington. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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