President Trump signed orders on Thursday granting pardons to anti-abortion activists a day before the annual March for Life rally in Washington.
An aide who handed the orders to Mr. Trump to sign described them as relief for some 23 “peaceful pro-life protesters.”
“They should not have been prosecuted,” Mr. Trump said in the Oval Office. “This is a great honor to sign this.”
Mr. Trump did not specify the names of the people who received the pardons, but the order that he held up for cameras to capture included the names of 10 anti-abortion activists who were prosecuted under the Biden administration for their roles in blockading an abortion clinic in Washington, D.C., in October 2020.
The defendants in that case were charged with two federal offenses: conspiring against civil rights and violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, for the parts they played in blocking the entrance to that clinic. That law makes it a crime to threaten, obstruct or injure a person seeking access to a reproductive health clinic or to damage clinic property.
One of the anti-abortion activists, Lauren Handy, was sentenced to nearly five years in prison last year for her role in leading the blockade. Her case drew widespread attention when the police said that they had found five fetuses in her home shortly after she was charged in the case. Other defendants received sentences of less than three years in prison. One defendant, Jay Smith, 34, of Freeport, New York, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 10 months in prison.