Anti-abortion activists attended the annual March for Life rally on the National Mall on Jan. 19, 2024, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
President Donald Trump pardoned 23 protesters convicted of blocking access to abortion clinics — a federal crime — on Thursday.
The protesters were prosecuted under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, a law that bans “threats of force, obstruction and property damage intended to interfere with reproductive health care services.” The statute was created in the 1990s after a wave of bombings and assassinations at abortion clinics. People who attack anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers have also been convicted under the FACE Act.
Trump’s announcement comes as anti-abortion advocates gather for the 52nd annual March for Life rally today in Washington, D.C. Vice President J.D. Vance and top congressional Republicans are set to speak at the event.
The rally starts at noon, and Trump is scheduled to speak by video around 4:30 p.m. ET, according to Politico. He was the first sitting president to appear in person at a March for Life rally five years ago.
Organizers of the rally announced Vance as a last-minute speaker on Thursday. His fellow party members, Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, were already slated to attend.
“We are thrilled that Vice President Vance has chosen the National March for Life for his first public appearance in his new role — a sign of his commitment to standing up for life,” Jeanne Mancini, president of March for Life, and Jennie Bradley Lichter, the group’s president-elect, said in a statement.
Trump, who takes credit for upending abortion access across the nation, has a history of shifting abortion views. In March 2024, he floated the idea of a national 15-week ban before declaring in April that abortion policy should be left to the states. Trump in October said he would veto a federal ban should such legislation reach his desk, but there are several ways members of his executive branch could restrict abortion.
A coalition of anti-abortion groups are calling for the Trump administration to reinstate regulations on mifepristone and enforce a 19th century law that they argue can ban the mailing of abortion pills.
They are pushing for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to add Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategies — restrictions — to the drug, and for the U.S. Department of Justice to enforce the Comstock Act of 1873 to stop pills from being shipped to patients.
“By reinstating REMS, the FDA will ensure the abortion pill remains subject to appropriate medical oversight that protects women and girls from harm,” Americans United for Life CEO John Mize said in a statement.
In a letter sent to acting U.S. Attorney General James McHenry, anti-abortion leaders asked the Justice Department to rescind a Comstock-related memo issued by former President Joe Biden’s administration.
The DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel released an opinion in December 2022 arguing that the U.S. Postal Service can ship abortion pills anywhere in the country, even in states that ban abortion. The memo essentially said that mailing the drugs does not mean they will be used illegally.
Mifepristone and misoprostol — the two drugs used in medication abortions — are also used to treat miscarriages and postpartum hemorrhaging.
Reviving a Gilded Age-era moral purity law could be the anti-abortion movement’s North Star: “If we got Donald J. Trump back in the White House, he could end abortion in every single state in America, by enforcing the Comstock Act,” said Mark Lee Dickson, a abortion-rights opponent based in Texas, last year.
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