
ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images
THE DAILY WIRE | Published January 25, 2025
The DOJ was clearly targeting pro-life protesters specifically because of their religious beliefs.
Today is the annual March for Life Rally in Washington, which I’ll be attending along with pro-life activists from all over the country. It’s easy to forget that our wonderful “pro-life” Republican presidents prior to Donald Trump wouldn’t even show up in person to the March For Life.
Trump was the first president to break that mold, when he became the first sitting president of either party to attend the event in person back in 2020. Then, just two years later, thanks to judges Donald Trump appointed to the Supreme Court, Roe v. Wade was overturned. A generational goal of pro-life activists was finally accomplished — sparing the lives of millions of children.
In the wake of this historic victory, Democrats retaliated. The Biden DOJ commenced a wave of illegitimate prosecutions targeted at peaceful pro-life protesters all over the country, from Washington to Tennessee to Michigan. Here’s how these prosecutions worked. First, the DOJ alleged that the protesters were violating the “FACE Act,” which protects “access” to abortion facilities. Then, the Biden DOJ invoked the “KKK Act,” otherwise known as the “conspiracy against rights” act. That’s a law that has nothing to do with abortion facilities. It’s a Reconstruction-era law that was intended to prevent the KKK from intimidating black people from voting or serving on juries.
By pairing these two laws together, the DOJ was able to pursue felony charges and extremely lengthy prison sentences for these peaceful pro-life demonstrators. Every single person attending one of these protests at an abortion facility could be accused of being a “conspirator” — even if they didn’t step foot in the facility itself. This is a legal approach that was never even considered to be possible when the FACE Act was debated in Congress, back in the early 1990s. In fact, Senator Ted Kennedy explicitly stated at the time that, “if an individual does violate this law for the first time, it is not a felony.”
That would be news to 75-year-old Paulette Harlow. She’s the mother of six children, including four kids she adopted. Harlow was sentenced last summer to 24 months in federal prison for “conspiracy against rights” and Face ACT violations. This is an obviously outrageous sentence that was issued by D.C. Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly. In particular, the judge completely ignored the fact that Harlow was in very poor health. As Harlow’s husband stated during sentencing, “I feel like Paulette is dying. In my heart, I think she’s having a hard time staying alive.”
Instead of responding to this information in any way, the judge appeared to mock Harlow’s faith, saying she should, “make an effort to remain alive” because that is a “tenet of [Harlow’s] religion.” Paulette Harlow was sentenced to home confinement, until federal officials could find a prison that could handle her medical needs.
Outside the courthouse, Harlow emphasized that she wasn’t violent in any way. And just looking at her, you can tell that she doesn’t deserve to spend 24 months in a federal prison. She’s obviously not a threat to anyone.
Watch:
If you can look at that elderly, infirm lady and think that she deserves two years in federal prison for sitting outside of an abortion clinic, then you simply a bad person, if not a lunatic. As Harlow’s lawyers at the Thomas More Society have pointed out, this prosecution gets even more unlawful when you look at the cases the DOJ chose NOT to prosecute over the last four years.
Specifically, the DOJ failed to prosecute, “almost any of the more than 170 incidents of violence against pro-life pregnancy centers and churches nationwide in the wake of the leak of the Dobbs decision.” There were at least 86 Catholic churches and 74 pregnancy resource centers that were targeted post-Dobbs. One of those resource centers received a threat, “If abortions aren’t safe, neither are you.” And yet, when The Daily Signal reached out to the DOJ and the FBI to see if any of these cases were being investigated, they didn’t get a response.
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SOURCE: www.dailywire.com
RELATED: Pro-life activist prosecuted by Biden DOJ reacts to Trump pardon: ‘I want to give him a hug’
So touching,’ Joan Bell told Fox News Digital of Trump’s pardon
President Donald Trump pardoned 23 pro-life activists Thursday. (Getty/Christopher Bell)
FOX NEWS | Published January 25, 2025
When Joan Bell, 76, was given the news she was one of the pro-life activists pardoned by President Donald Trump Thursday afternoon, she was in disbelief.
“I didn’t know if that meant we would get out in a few weeks or a few months, or what. I didn’t really know, but I knew we got pardoned,” Bell, a grandmother of eight, told Fox News Digital Friday. “Well, then I ran upstairs because I had a rosary every evening.”
After finishing her prayers and Bible study with other inmates, Bell, a lifelong pro-life advocate, was told by several other inmates that her husband, Christopher Bell, was on Laura Ingraham’s Fox News show saying she was indeed one of the 23 others pardoned.
“That was overwhelmingly beautiful,” Bell recalled. “Everyone was clapping.” She was then told by a guard to pack up her things for her release later that evening.
“We are so grateful to Trump. And to just feel the fresh air, God’s beautiful air, just wonderful,” Bell said. “Just being out and being with my husband, my son, just glorious. There are no words to describe that kind of freedom.”
She added that she and her husband will take a “second honeymoon” soon.
Bell, who lives in New Jersey, was sentenced to more than two years in prison in November 2023 for participating in a “blockade,” conspiring with other activists at a Washington D.C. abortion clinic in October 2020, according to President Biden’s Department of Justice (DOJ).
PRO-LIFE ACTIVISTS FOUND GUILTY ON CONSPIRACY CHARGES FOR 2020 ‘RESCUE ACTION’ AT DC CLINIC

Joan Bell, 76, (center), is pictured with her church community and husband Christopher Bell after President Donald Trump pardoned her and 22 others Thursday. (Christopher Bell)
Prosecutors from the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division and U.S. attorney’s office for the District of Columbia argued the pro-life activists violated the 1994 FACE Act, a federal law that prohibits physical force, threats of force or intentionally damaging property to prevent someone from obtaining or providing abortion services.
The activists were sentenced by Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, a Clinton appointee, and immediately detained.
While signing the pardons Thursday, just a day before Friday’s annual March for Life rally, Trump said, “They should not have been prosecuted.”
“Many, many of them are elderly people,” Trump said in the Oval Office. “They should not have been prosecuted. This is a great honor to sign this. They’ll be very happy.”
Bell, along with Paula Paulette Harlow, Jean Marshall and John Hinshaw, were all around 70 years old when they were imprisoned.
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SOURCE: www.foxnews.com
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