Trump pardons anti-abortion activists who blockaded clinic entrances

President Trump pardons anti-abortion activists convicted of clinic blockades, sparking controversy and praise from supporters.

President Donald Trump announced Thursday (January 23, 2025) he would pardon anti-abortion activists convicted of blockading abortion clinic entrances.

Mr. Trump called it “a great honor to sign this.”

“They should not have been prosecuted,” he said as he signed pardons for “peaceful pro-life protesters.” The people pardoned were involved in the October 2020 invasion and blockade of a Washington clinic.

Lauren Handy was sentenced to nearly five years in prison for leading the blockade by directing blockaders to link themselves together with locks and chains to block the clinic’s doors. A nurse sprained her ankle when one person pushed her while entering the clinic, and a woman was accosted by another blockader while having labor pains, prosecutors said. Police found five fetuses in Handy’s home after she was indicted.

Mr. Trump pardoned Handy and her nine co-defendants: Jonathan Darnel of Virginia; Jay Smith, John Hinshaw and William Goodman, all of New York; Joan Bell of New Jersey; Paulette Harlow and Jean Marshall, both of Massachusetts; Heather Idoni of Michigan; and Herb Geraghty of Pennsylvania.

In the first week of Mr. Trump’s presidency, anti-abortion advocates have ramped up calls for Mr. Trump to pardon protesters charged with violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, which is designed to protect abortion clinics from obstruction and threats. The 1994 law was passed during a time where clinic protests and blockades were on the rise, as was violence against abortion providers, such as the murder of Dr. David Gunn in 1993.

Mr. Trump specifically mentioned Harlow in a June speech criticising former President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice for pursuing charges against protesters involved in blockades.