Judge sentences 3 pro-life activists over Tennessee abortion clinic blockade

(OSV News) -- Three misdemeanor sentences in U.S. District Court in Nashville, Tennessee, on July 30 nearly marked the conclusion of the trial of pro-life activists who participated in a 2021 blockade of a Mount Juliet, Tennessee, abortion clinic.

A major trial begins Aug. 6 in U.S. District Court in Detroit for a 2020 clinic blockade in Sterling Heights, Michigan. That, like the 2023 trial in Washington that resulted in stiff sentences, is for violations of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, or FACE Act, which prohibits obstructions and intimidation.

In Nashville, Eva Zastrow, 24, of Dover, Arkansas, her brother James Zastrow, 25, of Eldon, Missouri, and Paul Place 26, of Centerville, Tennessee, each were sentenced to three years of probation with the first 90 days on home detention for a FACE Act violation. They had faced a sentencing maximum of six years in prison. Each defendant was found guilty April 2 for a violation of the FACE Act.

Earlier in July, Calvin Zastrow, 57, of Kawkalin, Michigan, father of Eva and James, received a prison term of six months, with three years of supervised release on a felony conviction.

Others receiving felony sentences from U.S. District Judge Aleta Trauger July 2-3 were: Coleman Boyd, 51, of Bolton, Mississippi, five years of probation and a $10,000 fine; Paul Vaughn, 55, of Centerville, Tennessee, time served and three years of supervised release; and Dennis Green, 56, of Cumberland, Virginia, time served and three years of supervised release.

All are evangelicals. They were charged with obstructing the only entrance door of the carafem clinic, located on the second floor of a medical office building, on March 5, 2021, and were convicted by a jury in January.

Sentencing for two other defendants who were convicted in January was delayed pending their Aug. 6 trials in Michigan. They are: Chester Gallagher, 73, of Lebanon, Tennessee, accused by prosecutors of organizing the Mount Juliet blockade, who is scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 26; and Heather Idoni, 63, a former bookstore owner from Linden, Michigan, who is scheduled to be sentenced the following day.

Sentencing for Eva Edl, who at 89 is the oldest defendant in any of the clinic blockade cases, was delayed as well but no date was set yet. She was the fourth defendant, along with the Zastrow siblings and Place, found guilty of a violation of the FACE Act, and she also will be on trial in Michigan. A resident of Aiken, South Carolina, Edl is a longtime pro-life activist who first participated in an Operation Rescue blockade in Atlanta in 1988.

Idoni is currently serving a two-year sentence for her participation in a 2020 blockade of Washington Surgi-Clinic in Washington. She is the only person who has been charged in four blockades, and is accused by federal prosecutors of organizing the one in Sterling Heights.

Charged in Michigan -- in addition to Idoni, Edl, Gallagher, and Calvin and Eva Zastrow -- are Caroline Davis, 25, of Atlanta; Justin Phillips, 43, pastor of ONELife Church in Flint, Michigan; and Joel Curry, 31, of Norton Shores, Michigan, who is charged in the indictment with livestreaming the blockade. It took place in the parking lot at the entrance of Northland Family Planning Clinic on Aug. 27, 2020.

Idoni and Edl are also charged with violating the FACE Act for allegedly intimidating and interfering with women entering an abortion clinic in Saginaw, Michigan, in April 2021.

Unrelated to these cases, on July 24 in U.S. District Court in New York City, a Tennessee woman, Bevelyn Beatty Williams, 33, of Ooltewah, was sentenced to 41 months in prison, with two years of supervised release, for violating the FACE Act in June 2020 for interference, including by threats and force, with individuals seeking to enter a Planned Parenthood clinic in lower Manhattan.

According to charging documents, Williams at one point "stood within inches of the (clinic's) chief administrative officer and threatened to 'terrorize this place' and warned that 'We're gonna terrorize you so good, your business is gonna be over, mama.'"

In a statement, U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said Williams "repeatedly intimidated and interfered with individuals seeking and providing critical reproductive health services. She did so by physically blocking access to clinics, threatening staff, and by force."

Her sentence is the second longest in the past year for a FACE Act violation. Lauren Handy, 31, of Alexandria, Virginia, is currently serving a nearly five-year prison sentence, the longest of any defendant, for her role in organizing and participating in the 2020 blockade in Washington. The second-longest sentence for that blockade -- 34 months -- was given to Jonathan Darnel, 42, of Arlington, Virginia.

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 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.

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."