On April 28, 2026, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government, chaired by Rep. Chip Roy, held a pointed hearing titled “From Tool to Weapon: The FACE Act and the Dangers of Federalizing Criminal Law.” The session exposed how the Biden-Harris Department of Justice transformed the 1994 Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act – sold as a neutral shield against violence at abortion clinics and places of worship – into a partisan weapon aimed squarely at pro-life Christians praying, singing hymns, and offering sidewalk counseling.
The hearing featured several key witnesses, including Chris Ferrara, Senior Counsel at the Thomas More Society; Roger Severino, Vice President of Economic and Domestic Policy at The Heritage Foundation; and Eva Edl, a FACE Act defendant and survivor of Yugoslavian communist concentration camps.
Witness Jessica L. Waters, Senior Scholar in Residence at American University, defended the FACE Act in her written testimony and a simultaneously published Ms. Magazine article. In that article, she wrote that members of the House GOP “attempted to rewrite or minimize the history of violence against providers and patients, recasting antiabortion clinic blockades as peaceful protest.” She insisted the law only targets force, threats, or “physical obstruction,” while claiming it explicitly protects “peaceful picketing or other peaceful demonstration.”
Waters made zero mention of the Biden DOJ’s selective enforcement, coordination with abortion advocacy groups, or the aggressive targeting of peaceful pro-life activists. Her testimony simply ignored the weaponization now officially documented by the Department of Justice itself.
This evasion stood in sharp contrast to the hearing’s revelations – and a viral exchange that spread rapidly across X.
Rep. Brandon Gill Grills Waters on Abortion Procedures
Texas Rep. Brandon Gill confronted Waters by asking what her “favorite” method of abortion was. When she attempted to pivot back to the FACE Act and vague talk of “access to care,” Gill read graphic medical descriptions of common procedures and pressed her to confront the reality of abortion. Waters refused to engage substantively and declined to answer.
The moment went viral.
RAIR founder Amy Mek weighed in, stating:
“It is incredibly beautiful to see Brandon give a voice to the voiceless.”
Seth Dillon, CEO and owner of The Babylon Bee, a popular conservative Christian news satire website, noted that Representative Gill “exposed abortion for what it really is”, and noted that to win, those who advocate abortion, i.e., the literal mutilation of babies, must use euphemisms:
“He [Rep. Brandon Gill] accomplished two important things with this line of questioning: 1) He exposed abortion for what it really is, stripping away the euphemisms that hide its barbarity, and 2) he revealed that abortion’s proponents are too embarrassed and uncomfortable to have the conversation without the euphemisms because it makes them look monstrous. In other words, they care more about how they’re perceived than anything else, including the wellbeing of innocent, defenseless babies. So they are, in fact, monstrous – and terrible at hiding it.”
As Seth Dillon observes, the exchange exposed a deeper truth about the abortion debate that Daniel Callahan, who was enormously influential in institutionalizing bioethics, openly admitted decades earlier. In an incredibly important 2012 column for The Hastings Center titled “Ethics, Advocacy, and Euphemisms”, Callahan revealed that he had been part of the early discussions in the 1960s and 1970s where abortion supporters deliberately crafted euphemisms to mask the reality of the procedure.
He wrote in part:
“Clearly, many of my fellow advocates sought euphemisms for the actual procedure, any phrase or word that would avoid acknowledging that abortion is the outright killing of fetuses, often by chopping them up, crushing their skulls, and otherwise destroying them. Better to talk about ’emptying the uterine content’ or ‘terminating pregnancy.’ A recent and notable addition to the list is to speak not of infanticide but of ‘post-birth abortion.’”
Callahan admitted the strategy had been highly effective.
Waters’ refusal to answer Rep. Gill’s direct question about her “favorite” method of abortion perfectly illustrated this long-standing tactic of evasion through sanitized language – the very language the FACE Act is now used to aggressively defend.
The Biden DOJ Weaponization
While the FACE Act text claims to target only “physical obstruction” that renders clinic access impassable or unreasonably difficult, the Biden DOJ used it to prosecute Christians who sat in clinic hallways singing hymns and praying. These peaceful acts resulted in federal felony charges, conspiracy enhancements, and multi-year prison sentences. Sidewalk counselors faced early-morning FBI raids.
The Biden administration pursued dozens of such cases aggressively while giving far less attention to vandalism and attacks against pregnancy resource centers.
This abuse was exposed in the DOJ’s 2026 Weaponization Working Group report – “an 882-page review” based on “over 700,000 internal records” – released on April 14, 2026. The report detailed the Biden Administration’s “weaponization” of the FACE Act.
Waters’ testimony and article completely ignored these official DOJ findings.
The Trump Administration Fights Back
The Trump administration took decisive steps to correct the abuse:
- Pardons: In January 2025, President Trump issued full pardons to 23 pro-life activists convicted under the FACE Act.
- Firings: On April 14, 2026, the DOJ fired at least four prosecutors involved in Biden-era FACE Act cases, including Sanjay Patel of the Civil Rights Division.
- Settlement: The DOJ paid pro-life activist Mark Houck more than $1 million following his acquittal on FACE charges and after an infamous armed FBI raid on his family home.
- Policy Shift: Future abortion-related FACE prosecutions were restricted to only extraordinary circumstances involving serious harm or major damage.
- Report: The Weaponization Working Group formally documented the prior administration’s misconduct.
Represented by the 40 Days for Life Institute of Law & Justice, Mark sued the DOJ and was awarded a seven-figure settlement. Watch a video discussing the case:
The FACE Act passed with bipartisan support decades ago in response to genuine violence. But under the Biden administration, it became a clear example of federal overreach and selective political prosecution – especially after the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision returned abortion policy to the states. Defenders like Jessica Waters continue to claim neutrality on paper while refusing to acknowledge how the law was ruthlessly weaponized in practice against peaceful religious expression and political dissent.
The House Republicans’ hearing, Rep. Gill’s unflinching questions, and the DOJ’s own damning report demonstrate the danger: when federal law is turned into a tool to suppress one side of America’s deepest moral divide, it erodes free speech, religious liberty, and equal justice under the law. The corrective actions by the Trump administration were essential, but the broader problem of specialized federal statutes ripe for viewpoint discrimination demands continued scrutiny and reform.
Watch the full hearing here:
