89-year-old death camp survivor convicted for pro-life protest faces jail time

CNA Staff, Aug 21, 2024 / 14:14 pm (CNA).

An elderly survivor of a Soviet concentration camp and six other pro-life advocates were convicted of blocking access to a Michigan abortion clinic, the latest in a high-profile series of judgments against anti-abortion demonstrators in federal courts.

The seven defendants in the case were found guilty for their involvement in a “blockade of a reproductive health care clinic in Sterling Heights, Michigan” on Aug. 27, 2020, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a press release on Tuesday.

The demonstrators were convicted of both a felony conspiracy against rights and a Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act offense, the government said. Sentencing will be set at a later date.

Kristen Clarke, an assistant attorney general of the Justice Department’s civil rights division, claimed the pro-life activists had “orchestrated an unlawful clinic blockade and physically obstructed patients seeking access to their doctors, without regard to the serious medical needs of the women they blocked from accessing reproductive health care.”

The defendants — Calvin Zastrow, Chester Gallagher, Heather Idoni, Caroline Davis, Joel Curry, Justin Phillips, Eva Edl, and Eva Zastrow — reportedly staged the demonstration as part of a “Michigan Holiness Revival Tour,” one that allegedly set out with the “express purpose of blockading a reproductive health clinic,” the Justice Department said.

The 89-year-old Eva Edl is a well-known pro-life activist and a survivor of a communist concentration camp who fled Soviet-controlled Eastern Europe.

Her biography reveals that her mother was kidnapped by the Soviets in postwar Europe after which she and her siblings were sent to communist concentration camps in Yugoslavia. She eventually escaped and emigrated to the United States.

The Biden administration has aggressively prosecuted several FACE Act cases over the last few years, handing out prison sentences to men and women who attempted to block access to abortion clinics around the country.

Some of the activists found guilty this week, including Eva Edl, were also found guilty earlier this year of a similar abortion clinic blockade in Tennessee in 2021. Edl has yet to be sentenced for that conviction.

Last year multiple pro-life activists were convicted under the FACE Act for an October 2020 demonstration at the Washington Surgi-Clinic run by Cesare Santangelo in Washington, D.C.

Pro-life advocate Lauren Handy, 30, was sentenced in May to four years and nine months in prison for organizing the protest.

Several other demonstrators ultimately received prison sentences ranging from about two to three years.

Texas Republican Rep. Chip Roy and 25 House Republicans last year introduced a resolution to repeal the FACE Act, arguing that the Biden administration had “brazenly weaponized the FACE Act against normal, everyday Americans across the political spectrum, simply because they are pro-life.”

Former President Donald Trump, meanwhile, indicated earlier this year that he would move to release some of the convicted pro-lifers from prison if he is re-elected president in November.

“Many people are in jail over this.… We’re going to get that taken care of immediately — [on the] first day,” he told the Faith and Freedom Coalition in June.