Rep. Chip Roy vowed Thursday to move forward with his bill to repeal the law used by the Biden administration to arrest, prosecute, and jail pro-life demonstrators.
The Texas Republican’s bill would repeal the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, or FACE Act, which Biden‘s Department of Justice weaponized against 23 pro-life activists.
“If my Republican colleagues continue to refuse to bring the FACE Act up for a vote in committee or the floor, I will file a discharge petition, and I will start to try to move the bill, irrespective of the normal \procedures,” Roy said in a speech Thursday at the conservative policy think tank The Heritage Foundation.
Passed in 1994, the FACE Act prohibits the use or threat of force and physical obstruction that “injures, intimidates, or interferes” with a person seeking to obtain or provide reproductive health services or to practice freedom of religion at a place of religious worship.
Though the FACE Act was intended to protect both abortion clinics and pro-life pregnancy centers, it has primarily been used to prosecute pro-lifers.
The FACE Act Repeal Act of 2025, cosponsored by Roy and 32 other Republican House members, would amend Title 18 of the United States Code to repeal prohibitions relating to freedom of access to clinic entrances. Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, also a Republican, introduced companion legislation in the Senate.
Ninety-seven percent of FACE Act prosecutions between the years 1994 and 2024 were initiated against pro-life Americans, The Daily Signal previously reported.
President Donald Trump pardoned 23 of the pro-lifers prosecuted under the FACE Act in one of his first executive actions after taking office on Jan. 20.
Now, Roy and his colleagues want to permanently end the law so it cannot become a weapon under future liberal presidential administrations.
“I’m not going to sit back and wait while people hide and refuse to bring something forward because ‘Oh, no, this might be a little bit more controversial than just moving another continuing resolution,’” Roy said. “It is time that we change [that].”
