Rep. Chip Roy calls on Republicans to repeal FACE Act, promises he’s ‘not going to sit back and wait’

Republicans should repeal the FACE Act – a law that the Biden administration weaponized against pro-lifers – and they must do it while they have the chance.

That was Texas Republican Rep. Chip Roy’s message at a Heritage Foundation event, “Facing the End of the FACE Act,” in Washington, D.C. on Thursday.

The Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, enacted in 1994, aims to prevent intimidation or interference with an individual who is “obtaining or providing reproductive health services.” It also allows any person “aggrieved” by the conduct to sue for damages.

Yet the statute has since become “a weapon of the federal government,” the Heritage Foundation noted, nearly exclusively used against pro-lifers: 97% of FACE Act prosecutions have been against pro-life individuals, many of whom were peacefully protesting, praying outside of abortion clinics, or encouraging alternatives to abortion.  

The FACE Act has garnered national attention in recent weeks after President Donald Trump pardoned 23 pro-lifers who had been prosecuted under it, including Eva Edl, an 89-year-old Soviet concentration camp survivor. 

Roy applauded the administration’s efforts but warned that executive orders and presidential pardons are a “blip in the radar screen” if laws such as the FACE Act aren’t repealed before another “radical progressive Democrat” enters the White House in the future.  

“It’s not enough to pardon. It’s not enough that the Department of Justice under Pam Bondi or the FBI under Kash Patel will not … be weaponized against us, or pro-lifers,” he said, noting that while it’s “great” it’s only “a three-year, and however many days are left, reprieve.” 

Roy, who in January reintroduced the FACE Act Repeal of 2025, called out fellow Republicans for not prioritizing and advancing his legislation. 

“Where are the Republicans?” he said, asking why Speaker Mike Johnson or the House Judiciary Committee haven’t brought the legislation up for a vote. “I’ll make a little news here: 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 added that he was “not going to sit back and wait” while his colleagues stalled on advancing his bill. 

Following Roy’s remarks, a panel of experts and pro-life advocates discussed the origins of the FACE Act, its weaponization, and why it should be repealed.  

Heritage Senior Legal Fellow Thomas Jipping, who authored a paper on the FACE Act, said that at every stage the statute has become “broader, vaguer, the opportunities for its manipulation and weaponization only increased.” He also said it was unconstitutional, since the two justifications for its passage – the 14th Amendment “right to abortion” and the power to regulate interstate commerce – have since been overturned or reined in by the Supreme Court.  

Another panelist, Paul Vaughn, was a pro-life advocate prosecuted under the FACE Act and threatened with 10 years of imprisonment after he prayed and sang hymns outside of an abortion clinic. In a “violent” experience, armed FBI agents showed up at Vaughn’s front door on Oct. 5, 2022 and arrested him in front of his wife and children, he said. 

“The pro-life event that was in question was March of 2021,” he said, meaning he was arrested 18 months after the incident. 

Vaughn, who was included in Trump’s recent pardons, said his prosecution under the FACE Act hasn’t changed his pro-life advocacy. 

Of his abortion clinic protest that led to federal charges, he said, “All I did that day, I prayed, I sang hymns, I talked to the police officers, and for that, Biden sent the Gestapo, armed guards, and put my life at risk in front of my children and hauled me away.”