Donald Trump flexed his presidential pardoning powers once more on Thursday, granting clemency to 23 anti-abortion lawbreakers. The transfer got here in the future forward of the annual March for Life rally in Washington, D.C.
On Friday, a prerecorded video of Trump was broadcast to the anti-abortion marchers. Within the video, Trump praised himself for pardoning the criminals, together with extremist Paula Harlow.
”At 75 years previous, Paula was sentenced to 2 years in jail, after praying exterior of a clinic,” he stated. “That’s why she was sentenced to two years.”
Nevertheless, the info paint a unique image. Harlow was considered one of 9 protesters indicted in March 2022 for utilizing chains, ropes, furnishings, and themselves to dam the doorways to a well being care facility that gives abortions.
Donald Trump holds up an government order granting clemency to anti-abortion protesters on Jan. 23, 2025.
Per the Justice Division, Harlow and the opposite eight lawbreakers “forcefully entered the clinic” as a way to maintain folks from accessing medical care that went in opposition to the activists’ beliefs.
One other pardoned girl—whom MAGA die-hard Charlie Kirk described as a “peaceful” activist “persecuted by the Biden regime”—is Bevelyn Williams. In actuality, Williams was sentenced to 41 months in jail after she crushed a clinic worker’s hand and used different means to dam peoples’ entry to the clinic, in keeping with the Justice Division. She additionally threatened “war” on the clinic’s workers, saying she would “terrorize this place.”
Presidential pardons apart, the 1000’s of anti-abortion marchers descending upon the nation’s capital on Friday appear to overlook one vital facet of the March for Life rally: They’ve already achieved their main purpose.
The primary March for Life was held on Jan. 22, 1974, on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, in protest of the monumental case granting federal abortion rights to ladies. However after the conservative-controlled Supreme Courtroom overturned Roe in 2022, states can now ban abortion to their anger’s content material.
Nevertheless, permitting states to ban abortion isn’t sufficient for the anti-abortion extremists. In response to the March for Life web site, they received’t cease till they construct a “culture of life” that makes abortion “unthinkable” for everybody.
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