Feds are suing a pro-life activist who barricaded herself in an abortion clinic bathroom
Prosecutors have taken action against a pro-life activist who barricaded herself in a Pennsylvania abortion clinic restroom, prompting a SWAT team response.
The United States Department of Justice filed a civil lawsuit against Minnesota resident Matthew Connolly for violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entries (FACE) Act by participating in Red Rose Rescue at an abortion clinic in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in August 2021.
The FACE Act subjects those who “by force or threat of force or by physical obstruction, intentionally injure, because that person is or was” providing “reproductive health services” to federal charges.
Get Our Latest Free
Subscribe to receive a daily/weekly email with the best stories (plus special offers!) from The Christian Post. Be the first to know.
“The defendant engaged in conduct calculated to shut down a reproductive health clinic for an entire day, forcing the evacuation of the clinic's patients and preventing access to reproductive health services,” said Kristen Clarke, Assistant Attorney General of the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division. statement.
“The Department of Justice is committed to enforcing the FACE Act to ensure that providers can continue to provide legal reproductive health services and that patients can obtain them.”
The complaintfiled in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, details how Connolly “gained illegal access to a secure patient space at a Planned Parenthood facility in Philadelphia without staff permission or knowledge and barricaded himself in a restroom” for more than three hours.
Officials say Connolly refused to leave the restroom despite multiple pleas from clinic staff and a security officer, prompting the abortion center to evacuate all patients and staff.
After the Philadelphia Police Department arrived at the facility and unsuccessfully tried to get Conolly to leave the restroom, they closed the streets surrounding the clinic and brought in a SWAT team.
The SWAT team broke down the door and removed Conolly from the facility carrying him out on a stretcher.
Following Connolly's removal from the clinic, staff members found red roses in the waiting room, suggesting the pro-life activist was affiliated with the pro-life group Red Rose Rescue.
The lawsuit identifies Red Rose Rescue as “an anti-abortion group that organizes events across the country in which participants trespass on the property of reproductive health facilities and refuse to voluntarily leave in order to cause the facilities to cease operating.”
Red Rose Rescue took responsibility for directing the events that unfolded at the Philadelphia Plan paparaco in after published a week later, expressing gratitude that “Because of the Red Rose Rescue, no unborn children were killed in that PP clinic.”
The complaint stated that “at least 44 surgical and other appointments had to be rescheduled as a result of the closing of the Locust Street facility.”
According to the legal filing, Connolly has been arrested at least eight times by police in at least four states. He was charged with several violations, including trespassing, resisting arrest and interfering with business. He has four convictions on his record.
The DOJ is seeking a civil penalty of up to $18,444 for first violations and no more than $27,750 for subsequent violations. It also seeks damages of up to $5,000 for each person aggrieved by Connolly's actions and “appropriate injunctive relief.”
Monica Miller, director of Red Rose Rescue affiliate Citizens for Life Society, accused authorities of trying to “twist and stretch the language” of the law in their lawsuit.
“This trial against Matthew Connolly is another case of a weaponized Justice Department obsessed with persecuting nonviolent survivors,” she said. The Philadelphia Inquirer.
On Tuesday, New York's Democratic Attorney General Letitia James introduced a memorandum of law in support of a motion against Connolly and other pro-life activists affiliated with Red Rose Rescue.
The motion asks the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York to hold the defendants in contempt for violating a December 2023 order prohibiting them from walking within 15 feet of the doors or sidewalk entrances of an abortion clinic.
The document alleges that Red Rose Rescue activist Bernadette Patel violated the order on four occasions. Two violations occurred at Planned Parenthood in Brooklyn, and the other two occurred at Planned Parenthood in Manhattan. It seeks $500 in fines against Red Rose Rescue per violation for a total of $2,000, suggesting that Patel's rhetoric made it clear that she was aware of the legal proceedings involving the organization.
Patel wrote an opinion piece addressing the prosecution of Red Rose Rescue asserting that “Like Satan trying to tempt and lead all followers of Christ to sin, the state persecutes is, hoping that we will waver in our beliefs or stop doing life's work. .” The pro-life activist vowed, “I certainly won't, and neither will my friends.”
In a statement announcing the motion, James lamented that “Red Rose Rescue will stop at nothing to prevent anyone seeking or providing reproductive health care.”
“If Red Rose Rescue and its members want to blatantly ignore a court order, then they must also be prepared to face the consequences,” James stated. “Too many New Yorkers have suffered at the hands of this hate group – it's time for them to be held accountable for their blatant disregard for our laws, our courts and our bodily autonomy.”
Abortion has been a significant focus in American politics since the US Supreme Court's 2022 ruling Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organizationa decision that determined that the American constitution does not contain a right to abortion. The Dobbs ruling led pro-life activists to call for the repeal of the FACE Act.
Pro-life activist Terrisa Bukovinac insisted to The Christian Post in a previous interview that “there is no longer any basis for FACE” because “FACE depends on the verdict in Roe v. Wade that the Supreme Court now said was 'grossly wrong' from the start.” Bukovinac was referring to the Supreme Court decision in 1973 that legalized abortion nationwide, which Dobbs overturned
Source: www.christianpost.com