(Originally published in American Thinker.)
We celebrate the acquittal of pro-life activist Mark Houck of the phony federal charges in Philadelphia on Monday, January 30. We celebrate the savvy and grit of the Thomas More Society for standing in the legal breach to give Mark back to his wife and seven young children.
But let’s be clear: the acquittal was less about justice being served and more about averting further injustice. The sword of government appears to have turned away from protecting peaceful citizens to attacking them. The very existence of a trial was a display of injustice, as the Department of Justice under the leadership of Attorney General Merrick Garland and the prosecution of Sanjay Patel abused taxpayer resources, targeting peaceful pro-lifers on trumped up FACE Act violations.
The Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances is a federal law designed, and almost exclusively used, to cool public pro-life speech around abortion facilities. The FACE Act, on its face, is unconstitutional, robbing states of their Tenth Amendment rights to self-govern while unfairly targeting pro-life people. The vast majority of the nearly 230 attacks on pro-life entities in 2022, many of which qualified as FACE Act violations, have gone unanswered by law enforcement. Compare that to the 26 people, all peaceful pro-lifers, indicted for being publicly, peacefully pro-life. But what does the DOJ do when real violence and conspiracy to deprive rights occur against pro-life people? And what should be done to get America’s justice system back on track?
Over eight months have elapsed since the arson attack of CompassCare’s pro-life medical office as part of an organized nationwide terrorist campaign to shut down all public pro-life activity. And only two indictments of Antifa-connected graffiti artists…but only after significant pressure on the DOJ and FBI from the media and Congress, accusing the DOJ of abdicating its duty to investigate the domestic terror and the abhorrent FBI SWAT raids of the homes of pro-life people. The FBI attacks were joined by pro-abortion politicians’ seditious rhetoric fomenting more violence and backed by Big Tech censorship, all with the express goal of shutting down, if not criminalizing public pro-life activity.
Justice will not be served for Houck or the American people until integrity is restored to the DOJ and FBI. How deep does the rabbit hole go? The DOJ not only has 1) abdicated its duty to investigate organized violent crime against Christian pro-lifers and 2) irresponsibly misused federal law enforcement to attack, indict, and prosecute those whose only crime is being pro-life, but also 3) now refuses to enforce the law regarding illicit and brazen chemical abortion–trafficking.
As members of Congress noted in an open letter to A.G. Garland on January 25, those pharmaceutical companies, abortionists, and online purveyors of the drugs are violating sections 1461 and 1462 of title 18 in the U.S. Code. It is the attorney general’s job to enforce the law. The Biden administration’s FDA deregulating the dangerous chemicals on January 3 and insisting that the drugs can be purchased and shipped via U.S. mail blatantly contradicts current U.S. law. The abortion industry is flouting the law, and the DOJ and FBI are oath-bound to stop it.
According to the law, current large-scale chemical abortion–trafficking requires prosecution under federal racketeering and money-laundering charges. Should Garland and the DOJ persist in their dereliction of duty, there is hope for future prosecution with a five-year statute of limitations. The longer the abortion industry flouts the law, the longer the jail time and the steeper the fines — including triple damages. This means that those who participate in the chemical abortion industry can be indicted under an attorney general willing to keep his oath to uphold the Constitution and laws of the United States.
While flouting the law is bad enough, what is worse is the danger this drug, dubbed the chemical coat hanger, poses to women and their preborn babies. The chemicals are so dangerous — five times more dangerous than surgical abortion — that the FDA placed them on the Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy list along with only a handful of other drugs deemed high-risk. Yet some online peddlers and recent abortionists fraudulently claim that they are “Safer than Tylenol,” sending them to women without even diagnosing pregnancy and ruling out any dangerous health conditions that could put a woman at even greater risk.
No. Justice will not be done for Mark Houck or for any American until the searchlight of truth penetrates the ranks of the FBI, the DOJ, and the Biden administration, indicting all those involved in conspiring to deprive pro-life people of their Fourteenth Amendment rights to equal protection, while refusing to protect women and children from being victimized by a mercenary abortion racket.
As a pro-life citizen and victim of organized pro-abortion terror, I humbly suggest that Congress take the following steps to get America back on the path to true justice:
1) Repeal the unconstitutional and bigoted FACE Act
2) Demand that the DOJ drop all FACE Act charges against peaceful pro-lifers
3) Compel the DOJ to pay for all legal expenses incurred by the Thomas More Society and others for their heroic defense of citizens against unjust federal charges brought by the DOJ
4) Demand that Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI director Christopher Wray be fired
5) Ask Department of Homeland Security immediately allocate resources for a sweeping investigation into DOJ and FBI corruption, and
6) Request that all state attorneys general commence investigations into abortion industry consumer fraud, serial medical malpractice, sex crime cover-ups, racketeering, and money-laundering.
Rev. James R. Harden, M.Div. is the CEO of CompassCare Pregnancy Services and pioneered the first measurable and repeatable medical model in the pregnancy center movement. He has written extensively on medical ethics, executive leadership, and pro-life policy. Rev. Harden has also developed materials and strategies used by hundreds of pregnancy centers nationwide.
