Pro-life activist Paul Vaughn avoids prison time after being convicted of violating the FACE Act

Steve Crampton, senior counsel at the Thomas More Society and Vaughn’s attorney, said he was “pleased that the judge showed leniency” to his client but accused President Joe Biden’s Justice Department of weaponizing the FACE Act “against its ideological opponents.”

“The heavily armed and evidenceless charges brought here by the Biden Justice Department against peaceful pro-lifers should never have been brought,” Crampton said. “The event for which the Biden Justice Department targeted Paul and his fellow pro-lifers was a peaceful demonstration by completely peaceful citizens — filled with prayer, hymn singing, and praise — aimed at convincing expectant mothers not to abort their children.”

Vaughn was one of 11 pro-life activists convicted of violating the FACE Act for demonstrating at a Mt. Juliet abortion clinic. One of the activists, Caroline Davis, took a plea deal and testified against her fellow activists — she received three years of probation. The other activists who did not accept the plea deal face up to 10 1/2 years in prison.

Under the Biden administration, pro-life activists have also been charged with violating the FACE Act for protesting an abortion clinic in Washington, D.C., in October 2022. The longest sentence was given to Lauren Handy, who received more than four and a half years in prison. Several other activists received more than a year in prison.

Less than two weeks ago, former President Donald Trump — the presumptive Republican nominee in the 2024 U.S. presidential election — criticized the persecution of pro-life activists and said that if re-elected, he would “pull them out of the gulags and let them go back to their families where they belong.”