Pro-life activist Bevelyn Beatty Williams has been sentenced to three years and five months in prison after violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act.
Williams protested outside a New York City abortion clinic in 2020.
According to U.S. Attorney Damian Williams, the pro-life activist “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.”
The Department of Justice’s (DOJ) press release claims Williams “purposefully leaned against the door” of the abortion clinic, injuring another woman’s hand.
On her GiveSendGo fundraising page, the thirty-three-year-old mom said she was “persecuted as a Christian standing for my beliefs when it comes to life.”
The Biden DOJ has sentenced several pro-life activists to prison in recent months.
Lauren Handy faces 57 months in prison and three years of supervised release for partaking in a protest outside of a Washington, D.C., abortion center in October 2020.
Handy was one of five advocates prosecuted after they staged a sit-in at the Washington Surgi-Clinic late-term abortion facility.
During the incident, the protesters sang songs, prayed, locked arms in front of the facility’s staff entrance, and attached themselves with ropes and chains to block doors inside the building.
“There was only one thing around which Ms. Handy and her co-defendants were unified, and that was nonviolence,” Thomas More Society Senior Counsel Martin Cannon said. “They conspired to be peaceful. Yet, today, the Court granted the Biden Department of Justice its wish by sentencing Ms. Handy to 57 months — nearly 5 years in prison. For her efforts to peacefully protect the lives of innocent preborn human beings, Ms. Handy deserves thanks, not a gut-wrenching prison sentence.”
Four more pro-life activists faced FACE Act convictions in April for peacefully protesting outside of a Tennesee abortion clinic in 2021. They face up to six months in prison and up to $10,000 in fines.
