Are there alternate realities according to ideology? Can abortion extremists in Congress create their own reality by crafting a deceptive letter to the Department of Justice? They certainly seem to think so.
Pro-lifers who are also cinematic scholars may remember Gaslight, the 1944 movie in which a jewel thief played by Charles Boyer marries an opera singer played by Ingrid Bergman – then schemes to convince her that she’s losing her mind. Object – as with the abortion industry: profit. Charles only marries Ingrid after murdering her aunt, with a view toward securing some hidden jewels.
Pro-abortion Congressman Jerry Nadler (D-NY) is no Charles Boyer. But he is trying to reenact the murderer/jewel thief role, with the help of many other members of the House of Representatives.
Object: shutting down pro-life free speech once and for all.
Nadler and 53 abortion-loving colleagues – including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Eric Swalwell – have put their insistent signatures on a letter to the Biden/Garland Department of Justice. The letter boasts “endorsements” from such unbiased and public-spirited concerns as the Pro-Choice Caucus, the National Organization for Women, and Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
Now get this. Nadler’s letter complains that the DOJ, under foaming-at-the-mouth abortion extremist Merrick Garland, just isn’t enforcing the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act severely enough. It cites statistics from the National Abortion Federation – a professional association of baby-killers – indicating increased trouble at abortion mills. It gripes that local law enforcement is not always zealous in the suppression of pro-life expression. It demands that the Biden/Garland DOJ do something before chaos, rooted in that pesky admonition, “Thou shalt not kill,” engulf the whole country.
And it politely requests a response by August 10th of this year.
“Gaslighting” – a term derived from that 1944 film – refers to nefarious attempts to convince victims of an alternative reality that just doesn’t exist. It’s clear that Nadler and Co. are with this letter trying to gaslight law enforcement nationwide. The Department of Justice isn’t doing enough to hit pro-lifers with FACE charges? What planet is Nadler living on? More important, what kind of totalitarian dystopia is he trying to create?
The demonstrable reality is that the Biden/Garland Justice Department has been over-enforcing the FACE Act with a determination that drowns the actual language of the statute in a tub of obfuscation – then casts the First Amendment to the ground and dances upon it.
- The DOJ raided the home of pro-lifer Mark Houck and arrested him at gunpoint, terrifying his wife and children – all because he shoved an abortion mill escort away from his threatened 12-year-old son. The local case against Houck was dismissed, but that didn’t stop the Biden/Garland DOJ from sending 20 heavily armed FBI agents to conduct a military-style raid against his family. He was acquitted on FACE charges when a jury at last grasped common sense.
- The DOJ made a point of prosecuting nine pro-lifers who entered the notorious Washington, DC. Surgi-Center, run by late-term abortion ghoul Cesare Santangelo, under a new, expansive application of the FACE Act. Activists committed simple trespass, and their cases were handled accordingly at the local level. But DOJ extremists and a virulently pro-abortion court have now managed to impose sentences of 21 to 57 months in federal prison. We are currently appealing the conviction of our client in this case.
- The DOJ piled on when New York State Attorney General Letitia James filed a civil suit under the FACE Act against pro-life Red Rose rescuers. Our client here, Laura Gies, was convicted of trespass and served a jail sentence. That wasn’t enough for Letitia James and for the Biden-Garland DOJ. They sought ruinous civil penalties and an order keeping pro-lifers 30 feet away from every murder mill in the state.
And the list continues. The Biden/Garland DOJ has been anything but lenient in its interpretation of the FACE Act. The law forbids obstruction at abortion mills. It does not forbid protecting your children. It does not even forbid simple trespass.
In Gaslight, the Charles Boyer character is fiendishly clever. The same can’t be said of Jerry Nadler and his ilk. Their letter gives the game away when it decries “incidents of picketing at facilities” that have been “growing exponentially for years.” The only way for the Biden/Garland DOJ to magnify its FACE Act mania is to go beyond prosecuting simple trespass and begin prosecuting constitutionally protected free speech – from pro-lifers.
This is what the radical pro-aborts in Congress actually want.
We at Life Legal promise you that they won’t get it. We’ve been fighting the federal government’s current FACE Act insanity and will continue to fight it. And we’ll fight Nadler’s recommended escalation even harder. We are confident in victory here on First Amendment grounds. Bring it on if you dare, DOJ!
- Please pray for pro-lifers persecuted under an unjust interpretation of the FACE Act!
- Please pray that congressional pro-aborts will fall on their faces if they push their planned suppression of pro-life speech!
- Please pray for Life Legal’s many other vital pro-life commitments!