WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) – In this three-part series, LifeSiteNews reporter Louis Knuffke explains why the shockingly biased D.C. trials, at which he was present, could ultimately lead to victory for the unborn. Part One may be accessed here, and Part Two here.
PART THREE
The sacrifice of the newly jailed rescuers may win the battle for the unborn
The rescue conducted by the now-imprisoned pro-lifers on October 22, 2020, in Washington, D.C., was a direct challenge to the FACE Act. They believe that the unborn are human persons deserving of protection and that abortion and infanticide are murder. The Biden DOJ is now using FACE to imprison these rescuers because it believes this is the surest way to scare pro-lifers into total compliance with abortion laws and keep them from interfering with their million-dollar baby-killing industry. The case is important because a challenge to FACE is a challenge to abortion, and upholding FACE is protecting abortion.
Indeed, the federal government has indicated there is “urgency” in using FACE to assure abortion access after Dobbs. It is now attempting to make an example of these rescuers, highlighting this case especially because it involves a late-term abortion clinic in the nation’s capital.
The significance should not be lost on Americans, as Democrats have pushed relentlessly to secure abortion at all stages of pregnancy with no restrictions, even resisting bills against infanticide. It is no coincidence that the DOJ and FBI are rallying around a FACE Act case that involves a late-term abortion clinic at which the abortionist has admitted he would commit infanticide.
It should be clear now to pro-lifers that the rescue movement aggravates and worries abortion advocates more than any other pro-life activity. Rescue is direct, and its effectiveness may be measured in the numerous abortion mills closed by Operation Rescue before President Clinton signed the FACE Act into law.
RELATED: Veteran pro-life activist Monica Miller answers several common objections to rescues
Should the present case take the short path to SCOTUS, it can and should be expanded to the more universal and more fundamental arguments about the unconstitutionality of FACE and the personhood of the unborn. With Dobbs now as governing precedent, the time is ripe to strike the FACE Act down, and this D.C. pro-life trial is the case to do just that.
Not only could an appeal to SCOTUS get the FACE Act struck down, but it could also initiate, through Congressional oversight in D.C., an investigation into the evidence for criminal activity at the Washington Surgi-Clinic, ultimately closing the abortion center and putting Santangelo behind bars.
Pro-life Republicans in the House have already introduced legislation to repeal FACE due to the national spotlight the D.C. trials have garnered. Similar legislation is being drafted in the Senate. Trump has announced he will pardon the defendants should he be re-elected. Pressure is mounting to dismantle the weapon of choice Biden is wielding against pro-life Americans. This same pressure can be brought to bear on SCOTUS to consider the case and strike down FACE.
READ: Rep. Chip Roy introduces bill to repeal FACE Act following Biden admin prosecution of pro-lifers
National pressure is immensely important here. The more outspoken pro-life leaders across the nation raise their voice and publicly call for FACE to be repealed and the D.C. rescuers freed from prison, the more urgent and likely a final determination of the matter at the level of the federal government becomes, whether through Congress or the Supreme Court.
What is needed now is support for these pro-life rescuers who have given up their liberty for the unborn. Friendly fire criticizing their sacrifice serves no purpose here. These rescuers had the courage to challenge an unjust abortion law, and while they suffer for their witness to life, they continue their pro-life ministry behind bars.
Indeed, their heroic willingness to suffer in witness to the sanctity of life and their unjust incarceration, far from being useless, has garnered national attention and placed an urgency on striking down FACE.
RELATED: ‘We’re saving lives’: Pro-life rescuers turn prison time into yet another ministry
Their time behind bars is being sanctified by prayer, and they are counseling pregnant women or their partners in the prisons. If suffering out of love for God is redemptive, then the injustice of their trial and imprisonment may very well win the graces our nation needs to move closer to recognizing the sanctity of life in the womb.
These pro-life rescuers, many of whom are devout Christians, have followed the example of Christ Himself and the many saints and martyrs who did not hesitate to undergo imprisonment for the sake of the Gospel. Unwavering in their witness, they were thrown behind bars with a peace the world does not know.
RELATED: Jailed pro-lifer Will Goodman: The answer to the abortion holocaust is Jesus’ love on the Cross
According to the maxim “divide and conquer,” abortion advocates would love to see the pro-life movement suffer division over the legal obstacles involved in “traditional rescue.” They would love to see pro-life leaders flee at the ferocity of the DOJ’s prosecution of those who dare to challenge FACE. They would love to see the verdict of the D.C. FACE Act trials be the last word.
But the pro-life movement cannot let that happen. Now is the time to unite behind the rescuers in the D.C. trials and take the occasion to carry Dobbs to its next legal conclusion: repealing FACE. Since there is no constitutional right to abortion, there is no legal ground for federal protection of access to abortion.
Definition of personhood at conception
Further, if the Fourteenth Amendment expressly prohibits the taking of the life of a person without due process of law, we must settle the question of the legal personhood of the child in the womb once and for all and define it in law.
This is the question that lies beneath all others when it comes to abortion. If the unborn baby is its own biological person, then abortion is not “women’s health care” but the murder of another human person. Thus, the whole of the matter ultimately rests upon the personhood of the child in the womb. There will be no true justice until the personhood of the unborn child is recognized in law and in the courts.
So where are things headed now that the eight pro-lifers convicted in D.C. have been thrown behind bars?
To the Appellate Court and SCOTUS, to striking down FACE, to incriminating Santangelo, to closing his abortion mill, and to defining the personhood of the child in the womb.