Pro-lifers jailed by the Biden-Harris administration for their activism are anxiously awaiting the results of the 2024 election. One candidate has promised to pardon them — the other candidate is part of the administration that locked them up.
The Daily Wire spoke to a number of these prisoners, who are in jail for violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, a law protecting abortion clinics under which pro-life activists can be charged for blocking or inhibiting a woman from getting an abortion.
As prisoners, they cannot vote. But they strongly urge their fellow pro-life activists and Americans not to support Kamala Harris, who supports unlimited abortions and who targeted pro-life activist David Daleiden and pro-life pregnancy centers during her time as California attorney general.
“Paulette is one of many peaceful pro-lifers who Joe Biden has rounded up, sometimes with SWAT teams, and thrown them in jail,” Donald Trump said in June as he spoke at the Faith and Freedom Coalition, referring to 75-year-old pro-life activist Paulette Harlow. “Many people are in jail over this. … We’re going to get that taken care of immediately — [on the] first day.”
He added that he will “rapidly review the cases of every political prisoner who’s unjustly victimized by the Biden regime, including Paulette, so we can get them out of the gulags and back to their families where they belong.”
All of the prisoners who spoke with The Daily Wire mentioned this promise.
“For the past fourteen months I, along with eight other anti-abortion rescuers convicted of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE) have been incarcerated in Federal correctional institutions, praying Donald Trump will be elected and make good on his promise to pardon us,” wrote Jonathan Darnel, imprisoned for trying to stop abortions from taking place at a Washington, D.C., abortion clinic.
He spoke with The Daily Wire from the Federal Corrections Institution Thomson in Illinois, where he will be imprisoned until February 2026. As he spoke, the prison’s automated message interrupted him: “This call is from a federal prison.”
After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, the Biden Justice Department was clear that it would use FACE to target pro-lifers as a response to the Supreme Court decision. Roe’s overturn increased “the urgency” of the Justice Department’s work, said Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta, including the “enforcement of the FACE Act, to ensure continued lawful access to reproductive services.”
Darnel, Lauren Handy, Herb Geraghty, Heather Idoni, Jean Marshall, Joan Bell, William Goodman, and John Hinshaw all believe that abortion is the murder of an unborn child. They sought to stop abortions from taking place by praying or singing in front of abortion clinic entrances — and the Biden-Harris Justice Department imprisoned them all.
Most of these pro-life activists are frustrated with Trump over his stances on abortion, but they expressed much stronger fears about a potential Harris administration. And they are grateful for Trump’s promise to free them.
“If Harris becomes president I would not be surprised if myself and my fellow Rescuers receive more indictments and lawsuits,” Handy told The Daily Wire. “She is an enemy to the pre-born and to activists alike.”
Handy is imprisoned in FCI, Tallahassee, a low-security federal women’s prison, where The Daily Wire unsuccessfully attempted to visit her last week. Outside the massive prison, birds chirped and a soft breeze swept the premises, occasionally carrying female chatter with it. Otherwise, the place was eerily silent.
This is the federal prison where the Biden/Harris DOJ locked up pro-life activist Lauren Handy for trying to stop abortions/save unborn babies in D.C.
She’s incarcerated in the same prison as Ghislaine Maxwell, infamous cohort of Jeffrey Epstein. pic.twitter.com/xHmjlCTpSV
— Mary Margaret Olohan (@MaryMargOlohan) October 31, 2024
Razor wire surrounds the premises. Visitors must wear very specific, modest clothing and predetermined clothing colors, or they will be sent away. Handy told The Daily Wire that “every time someone comes to visit me in person, I get strip searched naked.”
FCI Tallahassee houses some notorious female criminals — Ghislaine Maxwell, for example, convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s female cohort, is imprisoned there. Colleen R. LaRose, known as “Jihad Jane,” a woman convicted of attempting to “wage violent jihad in South Asia and Europe,” also served time in FCI Tallahassee, as did Russian secret agent Maria Butina.
Handy is housed with such notorious women for her part in “rescues” — pro-lifers’ attempts to stop abortions from taking place. She’s one of the duo who recovered the bodies of five preemie-sized aborted baby bodies from Washington Surgi-Clinic in Washington, D.C., where she believes abortionist Cesare Santangelo is performing illegal abortions. The District of Columbia refuses to investigate the matter.
“I am doing good all things considered,” she wrote. “There is much to be done to advance a culture of life in prison so I find myself feeling productive and hopeful.”
William Goodman is another pro-lifer imprisoned in FCI Danbury, 14 months into a 27-month sentence for attempting to stop abortions from taking place at Washington Surgi-Clinic in 2020, like Darnel and Handy. He says he was housed with Steven Bannon, who was released from prison on Tuesday, and several January 6 prisoners.
“Even though I wish none of them had been arrested and imprisoned,” he wrote, “their companionship has been a blessing.”
Goodman, in messages to The Daily Wire sent from the Connecticut prison, described the upcoming election in serious terms.
“This is an existential battle between good and evil, between life and death, between truth and lies, between sincerity and deception, between the First Amendment and censorship, between representative democracy and the administrative state, between those who love our nation and elite globalists, between freedom and state control, between our nation as a republic or as a tyranny,” he wrote.
“As our divided nation splits into two different worldviews, the heart and soul of America lies in the balance,” he continued. “Are we or are we not ‘one nation under God?’ I believe we are one nation UNDER GOD! I believe we need to pray and take action as patriots. And I know I am not alone. There are millions and millions of Americans who feel this way too.”
Goodman argued that the Harris-Walz ticket is “disgusting,” given that they have “made the killing of innocent babies the first priority of their administration.” He reflected on how Harris has described the right to choose as the bedrock of democracy, writing: “Such violent policy is clearly very harmful to mothers, fathers, as well as our whole nation, and obviously — it’s completely deadly for the most innocent & defenseless of all God’s children.”
“Sadly, as a federal felon I can not vote,” he wrote. “But I can ask all Americans to vote, and I ask them to defend our country and vote against the evil of the Harris-Walz agenda which opposes Almighty God in so many abominable ways.”
Some of the prisoners described their deep moral qualms with the election, especially since neither candidate supports the full abortion platform that they desire. Specifically, Trump has said that he would not sign a national law protecting the unborn — a move that many Republicans view as a political necessity, but many pro-lifers took as a betrayal.
“If Trump is elected, we’ll be pardoned,” said Darnel. “If Harris is elected, more activists may be arrested. So of course I hope Trump becomes president. But which outcome is more conducive to the end of abortion? That, I cannot tell you.”
“I encourage people to expand their view of what it means to be involved politically,” Handy said. “I believe we can create pro-life power through direct action, mutual aid and trans-local organizing. Pro-lifers should vote in a way aligns with their values.”
While the Biden-Harris DOJ has targeted pro-life activists, it has largely ignored the hundreds of pro-abortion attacks on Catholic Churches and pro-life pregnancy centers since the May 2022 leak of a draft Supreme Court opinion indicating Roe v. Wade would soon be overturned.
The FACE Act also protects pregnancy centers and Catholic Churches, and critics have argued that the Justice Department has weaponized the law to leverage it against pro-life activists.
“Nearly every single prosecution of alleged violence against abortion clinics has involved application of the FACE Act despite the lack of enforcement on attacks against churches and pregnancy resource centers,” Catholic Vote’s Brian Burch argued to the DOJ this summer. “What policies are in place at the DOJ which contribute to this imbalance, and what is being done to rectify it?”
The pro-life activists who emailed The Daily Wire from prison believe they were targeted.
“Most cannot believe that we are in prison for defending innocent babies!” wrote Goodman, describing his fellow prisoners. “They think it’s crazy the federal government has come after us with such hostility. Their honesty and sincerity is refreshing. Many of the fellas have expressed their sadness over their wives or girlfriends killing their babies by abortion. Their stories are heartbreaking to hear.”
As Darnel spoke to The Daily Wire on the phone, he paused his story as loud shouting and footsteps sounded in the background. “Oh, I think I gotta go, everybody’s rushing off to lunch,” he said quickly. “I’m sorry it had to be so abrupt.”
