OPINION:
America is in the midst of an unprecedented crime wave. In the District alone, the murder rate is already up 29% over last year and the number of strong-arm robberies has soared by 67%. Rather than address the rampant violence, federal prosecutors set their sights on Jean Marshall, 73, and Joan Bell, 74, who were convicted Friday over a quiet 2020 protest at a D.C. abortion clinic.
The two women were pronounced guilty along with seven other Christians who “engaged in a conspiracy” to temporarily block the entrance to Surgi-Clinic on F Street NW while saying prayers and singing hymns.
One of the conspiratorial “overt acts” alleged in the original federal indictment was the posting of the event to Facebook under the less-than-ominous title “No one dies today.”
At most, the incident should have been handled by local police under garden-variety trespassing statutes — just like the stunts left-wing environmental activists pull all the time.
In April, the group Declare Emergency stormed the National Gallery of Art and threw paint on the case containing the famed “Little Dancer” sculpture by Edgar Degas. The same group in August linked hands across all lanes of Interstate 395, bringing rush-hour traffic to a dead stop so they could demand the end of fossil fuels.
Naturally, there are a few key differences between these demonstrations. The pro-life activists inconvenienced only “Patient A” with the intention of persuading her not to kill her unborn child — or failing that, preventing her from doing so.
By contrast, the environmentalists inconvenienced thousands, making them miss important appointments or show up late for work. The museum vandals and freeway-blockers know they’ll be punished little, if at all. In February, a D.C. judge let off a 75-year-old activist who blocked I-395 with no jail time.
But the Justice Department wants its pound of flesh from those who dare challenge the one cause Democrats hold most sacred. Under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, the anti-abortion protesters will now spend up to 11 years behind bars and have to pay up to $350,000 in fines. The duration of their incarceration depends on the mood of U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, an appointee of President Bill Clinton.
In a particularly spiteful move, federal prosecutors sought and received a finding from the unsympathetic D.C. jury that the septuagenarians’ obstruction of the clinic door constituted “violence,” which allowed the judge to lock up the Christians as soon as her gavel came down — even though the decision is not yet final. An emergency appeal has been filed with the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia challenging the selective prosecution.
The pro-lifers cited a D.C. Circuit case handed down last month that concluded that “the government has no authority to license one side to fight freestyle, while forbidding the other to fight at all.” That is precisely what this administration is doing by ignoring the excesses of the left and bringing down the hammer on the mildest opposition raised by Christians and conservatives to their agenda.
Republicans in Congress need to recognize the gravity of allowing an increasingly brazen Justice Department to tip the scales of justice and undermine the First Amendment.
Members of Congress who fail to do something about it now shouldn’t be surprised if they find themselves the target of a political prosecution in the future.
