January 23, 2025, was a great day for the 23 pro-life activists who had been pardoned under President Trump. These activists were accused of violating the FACE Act (Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, signed into law by Bill Clinton in 1994) for their efforts to interpose between death-seeking men, women, and abortionists and the preborn children being led to the slaughter.
Paul Vaughn remembers the moment he was pardoned. He was providentially discussing how the FACE Act was unconstitutional at the “Law of Life” Summit held by the Thomas More Society in D.C. on January 23rd. Vaughn had been able to travel to D.C. for the Summit and March for Life only after receiving permission from his parole office to travel outside of Tennessee.
While on that panel, Vaughn updated the crowd that he had been pardoned in real time! Vaughn said that the most exciting thing about receiving the pardon was “knowing that my friends [Cal Zastrow, Heather Idoni, and other pro-lifers] were coming home to their families.” They and other pro-life activists faced prison sentences, while Vaughn’s sentencing included a house arrest and parole for his actions at the Carafem abortion mill in Mount Juliet, Tennessee on March 5, 2021.
Fateful Days
Vaughn, the Vice President of Personhood Alliance, and his wife Bethany have been involved with pro-life work for over 30 years. They actually met in Dallas while advocating for preborn lives outside of Dallas abortion mills and now have 11 children together.
While at the Carafem mill in March 2021, Vaughn said that he never obstructed any door; he simply prayed, sang hymns, and talked with police officers there.
Yet, that did not stop the FBI on October 5, 2022, from arresting Vaughn in the early morning with guns pointed at him, while many of his children were at home. The arrest was due to Vaughn allegedly “obstructing” access to Carafem over a year and a half prior, and thus supposedly violating the FACE Act.
Interestingly, one of the trial attorneys in Vaughn’s case, Sanjay Patel, wrote in a March 2022 DOJ Journal, that the FACE Act could be paired with Section 241, a statute originally enacted to prosecute the KKK, thus making a misdemeanor a felony since violations can be charged as a “conspiracy against rights.” Vaughn told me that his ideological stance with those involved in the Carafem rescue is part of the “conspiracy” charges.
As Vaughn chillingly explained, “My whole arrest was for one purpose, and that was to instill fear in the church and to send the message that if you don’t buy our narrative, we’re coming to your house.”
Faith Strengthened & Learned Lessons to Share
Despite all these trials, Vaughn is not easily deterred. The day Vaughn was arrested, no one knew where he was for six hours as he was taken to the federal courthouse. However, while there, he was able to share the gospel with a federal gun trafficker and drug dealer. As Vaughn reflected on this situation, he boldly stated, “The actual criminals have more of a sense of justice than the DOJ lawyers.”
Vaughn shared that his faith was strengthened greatly through this trial and that our faith, as Christians, is strengthened in general through the trials that come out of our personal sins or “our national wickedness as a culture.” During this time, Vaughn relied heavily on Jesus’ words in John 15:18-19:
If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.
Vaughn’s message for the pro-life movement going forward is to focus on the cultural battle for life. As abortions shift from a physical location to mail-order abortion pills, Vaughn suggests that we might need to change our approach to reach these women, including having an online presence for biblical truth to encounter those women seeking abortions.
Another front Vaughn warned of is the battle for embryos made in the image of God who are routinely destroyed or frozen indefinitely through the IVF process. Vaughn simply states that we must recognize how God designed for life to be created – through the marital act in a loving covenantal marriage between one man and one woman and not through a petri dish.
The FACE Act
Vaughn supports Representative Chip Roy’s and Senator Mike Lee’s efforts to overturn the FACE Act. He testified in December 2024 to Rep. Chip Roy’s House Judiciary Committee about the injustice and unconstitutionality of the FACE Act.
In that committee meeting, Vaughn mentioned how other sit-ins by groups such as HAMAS and BLM are not prosecuted to the same extent as those organized by pro-life activists in front of abortion mills. Vaughn argued that the law has been applied unequally since the vast majority of individuals prosecuted under the FACE Act are pro-lifers. You can watch the full committee meeting here: FACE Act Hearing.
Additionally, the FACE Act should be overturned because “it was predicated on the supposed right of having abortion [under Roe v. Wade].” Vaughn would like to see the legality of the FACE Act post-Roe challenged again.
Do you want to hear more from Paul Vaughn?
Georgia Right to Life is excited to announce that Vaughn will be speaking at its All of Life Summit on October 2-3, 2025, at the Cobb Energy Centre in Atlanta.
Vaughn encourages Christian pro-lifers to come to the Summit because “abortion has always been a flashpoint issue. And the church has to understand that and get it right. It’s a foundational issue for all of life.”
The church must be equipped “to defend and protect the unborn like they are humans and like they are a progeny that will carry on our future.” You will be empowered to do this through the All of Life Summit! Pre-register at https://grtl.org/summit.
Sources:
News: President Trump Pardons 23 Pro-Lifers Targeted by Biden Justice Department Under the FACE Act
Sanjay, Patel. “FACE Off with Anti-Abortion Extremism—Criminal Enforcement of 18 U.S.C. § 248 (FACE Act).” DOJ Journal of Federal Law and Practice (2022): 290-291.
Brooke Robyck
Georgia Right to Life
Project Coordinator