Trump DOJ's limits on FACE Act enforcement fuel concern from abortion providers
Source: NPR
March 9, 2025 6:00 AM ET
One morning in late August 2021, Phebe Brandt was attending to patients at a Planned Parenthood facility in Philadelphia, where she works as a nurse practitioner, when someone at the front desk told her a man had barricaded himself in one of the bathrooms. Just a few minutes later, everyone was ordered to evacuate the building. "At that very moment, we really didn't know what was going on," Brandt said. "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."
The man holed up in the bathroom was Matthew Connolly, an anti-abortion rights activist from Minnesota. He wasn't armed, but court papers say he refused to leave even after the police arrived. Eventually, a SWAT team broke down the door and removed him from the premises. Connolly's actions forced the clinic to shut down for the day. Patients who were mid-visit were sent home; those with appointments later in the day were told not to come in.
Federal prosecutors filed a lawsuit against Connolly under the FACE Act, or the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act. The law prohibits threat of force, obstruction and property damage meant to interfere with reproductive health care services, including abortion. The federal government's civil case sought to impose financial penalties on Connolly and deter future disruptive actions by him at abortion clinics.
The lawsuit was one of several the Justice Department brought during the Biden administration as it sought to protect access to reproductive health care. In the past six weeks, the Trump administration has moved to undo all of that.
Read more: https://www.npr.org/2025/03/09/g-s1-52616/abortion-face-act-access-enforcement