Pregnancy center slams FBI for failure to arrest pro-abortion firebombers

(The Daily Signal) – Staffers at a pro-life pregnancy resource center in Rochester, New York, are criticizing the FBI for failing to provide any kind of status update of investigations into pro-abortion vandals’ attacks on the pregnancy center.

Nearly two years after the initial June 2022 attack, CompassCare pregnancy medical center says that the FBI has put up billboards offering a $25,000 reward for any information leading to the arrest of the criminals who firebombed the pregnancy center.

The billboard is placed about a mile away from the center, CompassCare said in a release. The group added that the billboard appeared shortly before the sentencing of a separate pro-abortion arsonist, Hridindu Sankar Roychowdhury, who in December pleaded guilty to attacking a pro-life organization in Madison, Wisconsin.

CompassCare says that the FBI won’t communicate with them about the billboard, first noticed by the organization on April 1, and won’t provide a status update on its investigation into the attack.

“Supporters have asked if CompassCare paid for this expensive billboard,” said the Rev. Jim Harden, CompassCare CEO, in a statement provided to The Daily Signal. “We did not. The FBI refuses to communicate.”

“The erratic nature of [Department of Justice] and FBI behavior around cases of violence against pro-life groups appears to be PR related, bolstering their reputation when under pressure to produce results by media and congressional judiciary committees,” Harden speculated.

“Perhaps they anticipate more violence against Christian pro-lifers ahead of the next big Supreme Court ruling in June and want to make it look like they care?” he questioned.

The FBI and DOJ did not immediately respond to requests for comment for this article.

CompassCare was attacked a second time in March 2023. The Daily Signal’s Virginia Allen reported at the time that surveillance footage from the attack showed an individual wearing a hoodie walk up to the front of the pregnancy center, spray paint the word “Liars” over the CompassCare sign, then walk away back down the street. 

The radical pro-abortion group Jane’s Revenge took responsibility for the June 2022 firebombing of the pro-life center. Pro-abortion activists also spray-painted the words “Jane was here” on the side of the building.  

Since the May 2022 leak of the draft Supreme Court opinion indicating that Roe v. Wade would soon thereafter be overturned, there have been at least 236 attacks on Catholic churches and at least 90 attacks on pro-life pregnancy centers, according to Catholic Vote trackers.

The Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE Act) prohibits the intentional destruction or damage of reproductive health care facilities, theoretically protecting not only abortion clinics, but also pro-life churches and pregnancy centers.

But President Joe Biden’s DOJ charged only pro-life activists with FACE Act violations in 2022, and has since charged only five individuals with violating the FACE Act by targeting pregnancy centers.

In February, conservative leaders called on House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson to pass the FACE Act Repeal Act of 2023 “as soon as possible.”

“In the aftermath of additional pro-life activists being convicted by the Biden administration under the FACE Act for peacefully protesting outside an abortion business, we respectfully urge you to take immediate legislative action to protect peaceful pro-life activists from the Biden administration’s weaponized Department of Justice and an unconstitutional law,” the leaders said in a letter first obtained by The Daily Signal.

“The Biden administration has weaponized the FACE Act against peaceful pro-life sidewalk counselors and activists who want to save lives and change hearts and minds,” Advancing American Freedom Executive Director Paul Teller told The Daily Signal at the time.