7 activists convicted of FACE Act violations by blockading Michigan abortion clinic

(OSV News) -- The third major trial in the past two years of pro-life activists accused of blockading abortion clinics ended Aug. 20 with the convictions of all seven defendants for violations of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, or FACE Act.

Each was convicted of obstructing the entrance to an abortion clinic in Sterling Heights, Michigan, in 2020, as well as found guilty on an additional charge of conspiracy against rights. Both charges are felonies.

The seven are: Eva Edl, 89, of Aiken, South Carolina; Heather Idoni, 63, of Linden, Michigan; Calvin Zastrow, 57, of Kawkalin, Michigan; Eva Zastrow, 24, of Dover, Arkansas; Chester Gallagher, 73, of Lebanon, Tennessee; Justin Phillips, 43, of Flint, Michigan; and Joel Curry, 31, of Norton Shores, Michigan. An eighth defendant, Caroline Davis, 25, of Atlanta, had her charges dropped in exchange for cooperating with the prosecution.

By statute, FACE Act convictions with conspiracy added can result in prison sentences of up to 10 years. But the longest sentence imposed so far has been 57 months for Lauren Handy, 31, of Alexandria, Virginia, a Catholic pro-life activist convicted in 2023 of a blockade at Washington Surgi-Clinic in 2020 in Washington.

The Michigan blockade occurred at Northland Family Planning Clinic on Aug. 27, 2020. The trial began Aug. 6 at the Theodore Levin U.S. Courthouse in Detroit before Judge Matthew Leitman. Jury deliberations lasted a little more than three hours.

Idoni and Edl were also convicted at this trial of violating the FACE Act in connection with an April 2021 blockade at Women's Health Clinic in Saginaw, Michigan.

Sentencing dates will be announced later.

The FACE Act, adopted in 1994, prohibits obstruction and intimidation at both abortion clinics and pregnancy resource centers that counsel against abortion.

The first two trials also ended in convictions for all defendants.

The Thomas More Society, the Chicago-based religious liberty law firm representing Gallagher, immediately announced an appeal of the conspiracy charge.

The appeal is based on a recent Supreme Court decision, Fischer v. United States, in which the court narrowed the interpretation of "obstructive conduct" for three men charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol as Congress met to certify the presidential election results.
A statement from the law firm said that it believes the Supreme Court decision "confirms that the Department of Justice's novel strategy to inflict maximized pain upon peaceful pro-lifers by adding a charge of felony conspiracy against rights cannot be squared with the law and we stand ready to make that case."

Gallagher, Edl and Idoni also face sentencing for their convictions in U.S. District Court in Nashville, Tennessee, for an abortion clinic blockade in Mount Juliet, Tennessee, in 2021. It was delayed for all three pending the result of the Michigan trial.

Idoni is currently serving a two-year sentence for her participation in the Washington blockade. In Nashville in July, Calvin Zastrow received a prison term of six months, with three years of supervised release, on a felony conviction in the Mount Juliet case.

All are evangelicals. Edl, the oldest defendant in any of the blockade trials, is a longtime pro-life activist who first participated in an Operation Rescue blockade in Atlanta in 1988.

According to evidence of the conspiracy charge presented at trial, a prosecution account stated, "The defendants participated in the 'Michigan Holiness Revival Tour,' a camping tour organized by Calvin Zastrow with the express purpose of blockading a ... clinic during the second week of the tour."

Evidence of the FACE Act violation focused on the defendants sitting or standing "in front of the entrances to the clinic so that patients and employees could not enter."

Prosecutors said the defendants blocked a woman from entering. The woman and her husband "had made an appointment at the clinic after learning that their fetus suffered fatal abnormalities, and that attempting to continue carrying the pregnancy carried serious risks to (her) health and fertility."

Prosecutors, the statement said, "further proved that Calvin and (his daughter) Eva Zastrow followed a clinic employee around the building in order to prevent her from entering an emergency exit, and that Gallagher and Edl attempted to stall the Sterling Heights Police Department in order to prolong the blockade."

In the Saginaw incident, "Edl obstructed access by sitting in front of one entrance with a doorstop wedged under the door such that the door could not be opened from the inside, while Idoni used a bicycle lock to chain herself in front of a second door."

"These defendants are entitled to their views," said Dawn N. Ison, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, in a statement, "but they are not entitled to prevent others from exercising the rights secured to them by the laws of the United States. This case is about the rule of law, and today's verdict is a victory for that principle."

The Justice Department is also seeking steep fines and penalties against seven pro-life activists involved in blockades at two abortion clinics in Ohio. They took place at Northeast Ohio Women's Center in Cuyahoga Falls on June 4, 2021, and at Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio's Bedford Heights Surgery Center the following day.

Defendants in that case include the Michigan-based Citizens for a Pro-Life Society and Red Rose Rescue, an affiliated group, as well as Monica Miller of South Lyon, Michigan, who heads CPLS; Father Fidelis Moscinski of the Bronx, New York; Jay Smith of Freeport, New York; and Lauren Handy.

Prosecutors seek civil penalties against most defendants of $20,516 and a higher penalty of $30,868 for defendants such as Handy who have previously been convicted of violating the FACE Act. Prosecutors also are seeking damages in the amount of $5,000 for each person whose clinic appointments were disrupted or delayed.

In June, the Justice Department filed a similar suit against Calvin and Eva Zastrow, Gallagher, Kenneth Scott and Katelyn Sims for a blockade of an abortion clinic in Fort Myers, Florida, on Jan. 27, 2022.

The Catholic Church opposes abortion because it holds that all human life is sacred from conception to natural death. However, the church also makes clear that all advocacy for justice must use only moral means, with St. John Paul II teaching in his 1993 encyclical, "Veritatis Splendor," that a person cannot "intend directly something which of its very nature contradicts the moral order ... even though the intention is to protect or promote the welfare of an individual, of a family or of society in general."