Following Chip Roy in the House, Mike Lee put forth the Senate version of a Republican bill to repeal the FACE Act, the law Joe Biden used as a pretext to throw peaceful pro-life activists in jail.
WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) -- Republican U.S. Sen. Mike Lee of Utah is introducing the Senate version of a bill to repeal the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act that the Biden administration infamously used as a pretext to imprison peaceful pro-life activists.
“Joe Biden’s unjust weaponization of the FACE Act against pro-life activists and people of faith belongs in the dustbin of history,” Lee told the Daily Signal. “While President (Donald) Trump is stopping these outrageous prosecutions, we should ensure that no future administration has the ability to persecute Americans through unequal application of the law.”
Enacted in 1994, the FACE Act ostensibly protects access to facilities run by both pro-life and pro-abortion organizations, including abortion facilities, pro-life pregnancy centers, and churches. However, conservatives have argued that the Department of Justice under the Biden administration weaponized the act to prosecute pro-life activists while only a handful of pro-abortion vandals have been arrested after a string of attacks on churches and pro-life centers in the wake of the Dobbs ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade.
Among the most egregious Biden prosecutions have been 23 pro-lifers prosecuted by the Justice Department for entering abortion centers and refusing to leave, and who received prison time despite several of them being elderly with medical issues. Also concerning was the case of Mark Houck, a Philadelphia pro-lifer whom the DOJ prosecuted under the FACE Act after arresting him in a morning FBI raid for a physical altercation with a hostile abortion supporter that local authorities had already dismissed.
Houck was acquitted in January 2023; Trump pardoned the 23 others on Thursday.
Republican U.S. Rep. Chip Roy of Texas first introduced legislation to repeal the FACE Act in 2023 to prevent a future administration from renewing similar prosecutions against pro-lifers, but it stood no chance with Biden still in the White House and Democrats controlling the Senate. Pro-lifers hope that with Republicans now holding the presidency and both chambers of Congress, it stands a better chance.
Roy reintroduced the House version of the legislation this week, arguing that “we in Congress need to do our part to eliminate the laws used for the weaponization, including the FACE Act.”
The FACE Act Repeal Act of 2025 is expected to easily pass the U.S. House of Representatives and be signed by Trump if given a chance, but before reaching the president’s desk it will still face a challenge in the Senate, which includes 53 Republicans but requires 60 votes to pass most types of legislation.
