Please “. . . forgive the jury, the judge, and all those who witnessed against us, and to pray that they would see how God loves the gift of every human life,”[1] is the request of the just convicted William Goodman facing a possible eleven years of federal imprisonment and a $300,000 for violating the FACE Act (Freedom of Clinic Access Act) intended to protect abortion from contentious objection.
The profilers sought to protect persons in the womb from abortionist Cesare Santangelo, who is filmed acknowledging the law that requires him to render medical care to a person who is born-alive from a failed abortion, but that he would not and instead let that person die from neglect. Abortionist Santangelo stated it plainly when he was recorded by LiveAction.org saying, “We would not help it.”[2]
The preborn person, existing first as an idea in the Creator’s mind, is brought to the Washington Surgi-Clinic abortion center to be surgically destroyed. The preborn person is a complete human being capable of feeling pain and with a heartbeat and brain waves.
Rescue those who are being taken away to death;
hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter. Proverbs 24:11 RSV
Some of those charged were sitting in the center’s waiting room while encouraging the abortion-bound mothers to save their children from abortion. The others were arrested while standing in the outside hallway. This action is known in prolife circles as a ‘rescue’ because it is an intended action that has proven to affect many mothers to change their minds and save their baby from abortion.
In common law, if one must violate a lesser law to achieve a higher good, the violation of the lesser law is excused for the higher good. If one, when entering a burning house to rescue a human being who otherwise would not get alive, trespasses to save the life, the courts excuse the trespass for the higher good of saving a human life. This concept is known as the ‘necessity defense’ and is a long and hallowed legal defense in civilized societies. The court has denied the pro-lifers from raising this ‘necessity defense’ or any other related defense of themselves from these criminal charges.
In total, ten were charged with having a role in a sit-in at the Washington Surgi-Center in DC on October 20, 2020. They were arrested and indicted on March 31, 2022. Five were tried over the past three weeks and were found guilty. These guilty verdicts were unsurprising as the judge denied the defendants the ‘necessity defense’ or anything related to it. Three others will be tried for the same charges beginning today. A final defendant faces trial beginning on October 23, 2023. A tenth defendant, inexperienced with acts of conscientious objection such as a rescue and offered the prospect of a maximum of ten months of incarceration, pled guilty earlier.
A quick breakdown of the charges that may lead to an unprecedented threat of eleven (11) years in federal prison with accompanying fines are:
- Incarceration for up to one year in federal prison for violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrance Act (FACE) that prohibits threats of force, obstruction, and property damage intended to interfere with reproductive health care service (a euphemism for abortion).
- Incarceration for up to ten years in federal prison for “conspiracy to interfere with civil rights.” In the fifty years of active contentious objection since Roe V. Wade unleashed unrestricted abortion in our country, the prosecutors have never sought such draconian penalties.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” is from the Declaration of Independence’s preamble.
Life is a self-evident, inalienable right of all human beings created. Because abortion unjustly takes the life of the preborn person, it is neither a constitutional nor a civil right of anyone’s. Akin to the defense of slavery in our past, the preborn person is neither recognized as a person in our courts and, accordingly, nor is recognized as having the rights of life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness.
When the right to life is denied, it is not the denial of one right; rather, it is the denial of all rights. St. Pope John Paul II stated this principle when he wrote, “Above all, the common outcry, which is justly made on behalf of human rights, for example, the right to health, to home, to work, to family, to culture- is false and illusory if the right to life, the most basic and fundamental right and the condition for all other personal rights, is not defended with maximum determination.”[3]
These contentious objectors, or Rescuers of the preborn, are prepared to accept the solidarity with the alienated preborn. As Joan Andrews Bell, one of the defendants, has been saying for decades, “You reject them, you reject me.”[4]
Aside from being a creative use of the law by Merrick Garland’s and Joseph Biden’s Department of Justice, these charges and penalties are cruelly punitive. They are meant to punish the contentious objector and send a message to us not to even consider following their attitude, much less their action.
Contraception/Abortion has become a structure of sin in our culture. It is tolerated, accommodated, and promoted as a good for all. The unrepentant sin of individuals has accumulated to a body reaching in and corrupting all aspects of our society, i.e., marriage, the family, courtship, medicine, law and justice, insurance, education, entertainment, and foreign aid, to name a few. Even the Church and its teachings are severely challenged by these unrepentant sins.
Just this past week, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, which had for decades offered qualified acceptance of abortion, just came out for unrestricted abortion.[5]
May we also take into prayer and fasting the systemic alienation from the preborn that society has promoted. Ask God what else he may be asking from you to transform our minds to God’s counsel and our love for these families threatened by abortion.
May we meet in prayer under His Cross.
© 2023 Patrick A. O’Donnell All Rights Reserved
[1] “Pro-life rescuers immediately incarcerated following jury’s guilty verdict in DC FACE Act trial,” August 29, 2023 – 3:05 pm EDT, https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/breaking-pro-life-rescuers-immediately-incarcerated-following-jurys-guilty-verdict-in-dc-face-act-trial/
[2] Miller, Monica Migliorino, “Life, Abortion, and Injustice in Washington, D.C.,” Catholic World Report, September 2, 2023, https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2023/09/02/life-abortion-and-injustice-in-washington-d-c/
[3] St. Pope John Paul II, Christifidelis Laici, Section 38, December 30, 1988.
[4] cf NAB Luke 10:16
[5] Parks, Kristine, OB-GYN group attacks pro-life ‘misinformation’ on abortion: ‘Must be available without restrictions,’ Fox News, September 1, 2023, https://www.foxnews.com/media/ob-gyn-group-attacks-pro-life-misinformation-abortion-available-without-restrictions
