7 Pro-Life Activists Found Guilty of Blocking Abortion Door Access Face 10 Years in Prison, Including 89y/o Concentration Camp Survivor
Seven pro-life activists have been found guilty of staging a rescue/ blockade of an abortion clinic in Sterling Heights, Michigan, including an 89-year-old concentration camp survivor, and face a decade in prison.
On Tuesday, Chester Gallagher, Heather Idoni, Caroline Davis, Joel Curry, Justin Phillips, Eva Edl, and Cal and Eva Zastrow were all found guilty of violating the FACE Act (Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act) after the group peacefully encircled the Northland Family Planning Clinic in 2020 and refused to let anyone in, staging a “blockade.”
When the police came, they also refused to move, striking up conversations with officers in order to give others more time to talk to abortion-minded women and seek to change their minds. Eventually, law enforcement escorted them off the property.
Blockades used to be much more common, particularly in the 1980s, where often hundreds or thousands of pro-lifers would surround clinics and would be arrested en masse, with the LA Times reporting a thousand arrested in a single day. (See historical images below)
Following her initial arrest, when challenged about the purpose of the protests and their personal cost, defendant Heather Idoni explained that this was born of deeply seated convictions.
Well, first, we aren’t protesters. As a friend of mine told me once, ‘Does a firefighter run to the fire to protest the fire? No, we follow the historical Christian doctrine of interposition. We are there to interpose our own bodies to save as many lives as we can….(we) take literally the scripture in Proverbs 24:10-12. We are obeying the command to rescue those who are unjustly sentenced to death; do not stand back and let them die.”
Throughout the trial, prosecutors have been working with Caroline Davis, a former ally and pro-life activist who was present at the blockade but agreed to turn state’s witness and testify against the group in exchange for having her felony charges pled down to a misdemeanor.
Among the group found guilty are Eval Edel, an 89-year-old woman who survived a communist prison camp in her youth and who has been arrested over 50 times blockading abortion clinics, and Cal Zastrow, who was previously found guilty of a Face Act violation just a few months ago and was sentenced to six months in prison, which he starts serving in October.
The group faces ten years in prison, with the sentencing date not yet being set.
Responding to the news of his guilty verdict, Zastrow was content to count the costs, writing on Facebook:
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