As Congressional Republicans move to repeal the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, the Trump administration’s Department of Justice is signaling a new direction: one of equal enforcement, including prosecution of attacks on pro-life pregnancy centers and houses of worship, not just abortion clinics.
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, head of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, told The Daily Signal that under her leadership, the FACE Act will no longer be wielded as a partisan tool.
“While the statute is in place, it provides protection for both people who are going to abortion clinics as well as crisis pregnancy centers,” Dhillon said. “And we intend to prosecute numerous attacks that have happened on those over the years.”
The move comes in sharp contrast to how the Biden-era DOJ enforced the FACE Act. According to data from Rep. Chip Roy’s office, 97% of convictions between 1997 and 2024 were against pro-life activists — despite at least 96 attacks on pregnancy centers and pro-life groups since the leak of the Dobbs decision in 2022.
The FACE Act, passed in 1994, was designed to protect access to both abortion clinics and pro-life alternatives. But in practice, it became a legal cudgel disproportionately used against pro-lifers who simply prayed or protested peacefully outside abortion facilities.
Dhillon, a longtime conservative civil rights attorney and First Amendment advocate, emphasized that the DOJ will not prosecute peaceful protesters.
She also revealed that prosecutions are now underway involving attacks on crisis pregnancy centers, a fertility clinic, and houses of worship.
Dhillon urged pregnancy resource centers and pro-life organizations to submit evidence of past attacks, warning that the statute of limitations may soon expire in some cases.
“What I will say about cases involving pro-life facilities and crisis pregnancy centers is that I think there are approximately 200 attacks on those in the last few years, but we don’t have 200 cases we can bring because we don’t have evidence of who committed the crimes.”
“We are very much interested in evidence and bringing those cases, and so people should feel free to come forward,” she said. “They can contact us, they can contact the FBI, work with even local law enforcement, and we would love to bring cases to hold people accountable who interfered with the right of a woman to seek health care.”
Meanwhile, many Republicans in Congress are still pushing to repeal the FACE Act altogether, citing decades of selective enforcement and erosion of free speech rights.
While Dhillon acknowledges that “any statute can be abused,” she believes the law’s core protections can be used for good — if enforced fairly.
Dhillon confirmed that more than 200 attorneys left the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division after Trump’s return to office, many of them ideologically aligned with the prior administration.
She emphasized that the Trump administration is a “pro-life administration and that comes from the top. All the folks I work with here are very respectful of life.”
Dhillon is no stranger to the pro-life legal fight. She previously represented David Daleiden, the journalist who exposed Planned Parenthood’s alleged trafficking in fetal body parts, in high-profile litigation against abortion industry giants.
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Yep, put all of the street thugs in jail and leave them there.