A Nashville jury found six pro-life advocates guilty on Tuesday after President Joe Biden's Department of Justice charged them over a peaceful protest at a Mount Juliet abortion facility in March 2021.
Pro-life advocates Chet Gallagher, Coleman Boyd, Heather Idoni, Cal Zastrow, Dennis Green, and Paul Vaughn face up to 11 years in prison for violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act.
BREAKING: Six pro-life activists were just found guilty in federal court after being prosecuted by Biden's DOJ under the FACE Act for protesting outside a Nashville abortion clinic.
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) January 30, 2024
Here's a snippet of the protest, which occurred on March 5, 2021.
For the crime of praying and… pic.twitter.com/UPzZvtZebM
According to the DOJ's October 2022 release, the Biden agency alleges that "Gallagher utilized social media to promote a series of anti-abortion events scheduled for March 4-7, 2021, in the Nashville area. Other co-conspirators then utilized Facebook to coordinate travel and logistics and to identify other participants for the blockade."
The DOJ alleges that Gallagher called the blockade a "rescue," which was live-streamed on Facebook. The Biden DOJ referred to the pro-life advocates as "co-conspirators." The release also said that the members of the "group attempting to engage a patient and her companion as Boyd told his Livestream audience that the patient was a 'mom coming to kill her baby.'"
Another video showed the group singing songs such as "Holy, Holy, Holy" and "Onward Christian Soldiers" while other group members were seen talking to police officers.
However, according to video footage and sources, the group only prayed, sang hymns, and urged women arriving at the clinic not to get abortions.
Vaughn previously said that the FBI showed up at his door, banging on his house, yelling and screaming at him to open the door. He said when he finally did open the door, the agents had guns pointed at him.
"I had kids in the yard walking out to get in the car to go to school; I was about to take them to school, and other kids in the house," he added. "So seeing that the easiest path to de-escalation was me in handcuffs, I stepped outside and put an end to the ranting and the banging and the yelling."
Video of the FBI's arrest of Paul Vaughn of Centerville, Tennessee. DOJ charged him with “conspiracy against rights secured by the FACE Act, and committing FACE Act violations" for blocking the entrance to an abortion clinic. Paul tells me the footage was taken by his wife. pic.twitter.com/KSDvLRSrlF
— Mary Margaret Olohan (@MaryMargOlohan) October 7, 2022
During the trial, attorneys with the Thomas More Society representing Vaughn argued that Biden's DOJ was only enforcing the FACE Act against pro-life individuals.
The group is expected to be sentenced in July.
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