After months as a rightwing bogeyman, two activists are hit with federal charges
This week, the DOJ announced indictments against Caleb Freestone, 27, and Amber Smith-Stewart, 23. Freestone and Smith-Stewart are accused of vandalizing three Florida crisis pregnancy centers: the Archdiocese of Miami’s ‘Respect Life’ facility in Hollywood, the Pregnancy Help Medical Clinics in Hialeah, and LifeChoice Pregnancy Center in Winter Haven. All three offer free pregnancy tests and ultrasounds, and counsel women against terminating their pregnancies.
Ironically, the accused will now be prosecuted under the Freedom to Access Clinic Entrances Act: a law intended to protect access to reproductive health services. The FACE Act was passed in 1994, in the wake oforganized by the militant group Operation Rescue, when hundreds of anti-abortion protesters would gather to physically block the paths of patients trying to enter health care facilities.
If it seems like a perverse misuse of a law intended to protect health care providers from the very real threats of violence they face for providing abortions, Julie Abbate, former deputy chief of special litigation with the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division says it’s not. “It’s really a content-neutral law. It doesn’t take viewpoint into consideration,” says Abbate, who prosecuted FACE Act violations during her 15-year tenure at DOJ.
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