Blitz Bureau
WASHINGTON: In addresses to the March for Life, the nation’s largest anti-abortion rally, Donald Trump and his Vice-President, JD Vance, both indicated that the US Justice Department would no longer prosecute anti-abortion activists, according to a report published by The Guardian.
“No longer will our Government throw pro-life protesters and activists – elderly, grandparents, or anybody else – in prison,” Vance told the thousandsstrong crowd that gathered on the National Mall, in the shadow of the Washington Monument on January 24. Vance trumpeted the President’s decision to pardon several anti-abortion activists who had been convicted of violating the federal Free Access to Clinic Entrances Act, or the Face Act, by blockading an abortion clinic, said The Guardian report.
That law penalises people who threaten, obstruct or injure someone who is trying to access a reproductive health clinic – or who vandalise a clinic. Anti-abortion activists have, for years, attempted to strike it down or convince the federal Government to stop enforcing it.
“I’m releasing the Christians and pro-life activists who were persecuted by the Biden regime for praying and living out their faith,” Trump said in his own address, which the President prerecorded and broadcast to the crowd on two giant screens. He added: “Never again will religious persecution be allowed to happen in America.”
However, neither Trump nor Vance talked about any of the sweeping policies that abortion rights activists are now bracing for, such as the enforcement of a 19th-century anti-vice law that could effectively ban abortion nationwide, added the Guardian report. They did not even mention the Mexico City policy, which is also known as the ‘global gag rule’ and which blocks foreign non-Governmental organisations (NGOs) from receiving assistance if they refer people for abortions, counsel them on the procedure or advocate for its access.
Every Republican President since Ronald Reagan has enforced this rule. And every Democratic one has rescinded it, although Trump – during his first presidency – dramatically expanded the rule’s scope so that it affected some $6 billion in aid. The lack of immediate action from the new Trump administration on the policy has puzzled abortion rights supporters.
