Trial Begins For Mark Houck, The Catholic Pro-Life Activist Biden’s DOJ Wants Behind Bars | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This post appears here courtesy of the The Daily Wire. The author of this post is Amanda Prestigiacomo.

    The trial for pro-life activist and Catholic father of seven Mark Houck started Tuesday before U.S. District Judge Gerald J. Pappert in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

    The Department of Justice is targeting Houck, who leads a nonprofit group that provides sidewalk counseling at abortion clinics in Philadelphia, over an incident from 2021 involving his then-12-year-old son at a Planned Parenthood abortion facility. The family says Houck, who's been charged with violating the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, was defending his son from a harassing pro-abortion activist. Houck is facing 11 years behind bars and $350,000 in fines if convicted.

    "This is a political prosecution," said one of Houck's attorneys, Peter Breen, Thomas More Society vice president. Breen added his client is innocent and the Biden DOJ moved against Houck to "send a message" to pro-life Americans.

    "And what's clear from the Department of Justice at its highest levels, which is directing this case, [is] that they are trying to send a message to pro-life and people of faith: 'Don't mess with us,'" he said. "They want to intimidate - they want to cause good people like Mark to stop praying and counseling at the abortion clinics of our country. And that's not going to happen."

    "What in the world would possess the Department of Justice to send 20 or so heavily armed agents to this family's home, violate the sanctity of that home, frighten the children and then drag their father away instead of allowing us to present him peacefully, which we had offered to do?" Breen questioned.

    The DOJ in a press release last year claimed Houck assaulted the abortion escort on two occasions on October 13, 2021, "because he was a volunteer reproductive health care clinic escort."

    "Assault is always a serious offense, and under the FACE Act, if the victim is targeted because of their association with a reproductive healthcare clinic, it is a federal crime," U.S. Attorney Jacqueline Romero said in the release. "Our Office and the Department of Justice are committed to prosecuting crimes which threaten the safety and rights of all individuals."

    Lawyers for Mark Houck during pre-trial last week said they produced evidence proving that when Congress passed the FACE Act "it expressly intended to exclude so-called 'escorts' operating outside of abortion facilities from being encompassed by the FACE Act."

    "The FACE Act was never intended to cover disputes between advocates on the public sidewalks outside of our nation's abortion clinics," Breen said. "This new evidence shows clearly that Congress intended to limit the FACE Act to patients and staff working in the clinic, and not to take sides between pro-life and pro-choice counselors and escorts on the sidewalk. The Biden Department of Justice's prosecution of Mark Houck is pure harassment, meant solely to intimidate our nation's pro-life sidewalk counselors who provide vital resources to help pregnant women at risk for abortion."

poll#152

With Roe v Wade (originated in 1973) overturned by the US Supreme Court, thereby allowing decisions on abortion legislation completely returned to the states: Where do you find your position on such a "Life and Death" issue for the American People?

  Yes, I approve of the US Supreme Court's decision to reinstate this "medical" issue back to the states' legislative responsibility to regulate.

  No, I believe that every woman should have complete access to abortion on demand.

  This issue is far beyond my intellectual capacity to understand.

536 total vote(s)     What's your Opinion?

poll#165

In light of continued developments, primarily since 2008, there exists in these United States a Legal System which operates on a proved Two Tiered approach to justice rendered, which primarily benefits Democratic Elites and Woke Ideological Virtue Signalers, representing their co-dependent wards, to the expressed exclusion of normal hardworking American citizens: What is your suggestion in remedying this widespread injustice and, if not corrected, its existential outcome for our Constitutional Republic?

  Complete overhaul of the Department of Justice and their enforcers - the FBI - to reflect a far more honest justice system to keep patriots remaining calm.

  Disband the FBI, and request that congress investigate all unethical and non patriotic practices to partially right the wrongs of a distrusted and politically weaponized "Department of Justice."

  Continue with the current system since the two tiered justice system has been so remarkably beneficial to Democratic Socialist political hegemony; chronic distrust in institutions notwithstanding.

367 total vote(s)     What's your Opinion?

poll#150

With respect to the leaked opinion not yet written for ratification regarding the U.S. Supreme Court's revisiting the original decision of Roe v Wade, whence now nonstop protests have erupted in neighborhoods where U.S. Supreme Court justices live, exhibiting the firm intent to intimidate these officers of the highest court in the land: What action should the federal authorities take?

  Do nothing ... Protests are a fixture of a free society.

  Enforce the law ... Federal codes exist to prohibit any intimidation through the pubic harassment of federal judges, especially Supreme Court justices.

  I have no idea, however, northern Virginia School Board Members must be shielded from protests at all costs.

529 total vote(s)     What's your Opinion?