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FIRST IN THE DAILY SIGNAL—Speaker of the House Mike Johnson plans to hold an event Wednesday in honor of the 52nd anniversary of Title IX on protecting women’s sports and spaces.
The Louisiana Republican will lead a panel discussion with NCAA swimmer Riley Gaines, former U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, the Independent Women’s Forum’s Heather Higgins, and North Carolina Republican Rep. Virginia Foxx, who is chairwoman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee.
The event will take place on Wednesday afternoon on Capitol Hill, The Daily Signal has learned.
Title IX was originally enacted in 1972 to protect women and girls by prohibiting sex-based discrimination in most facets of education, including sports, in programs that receive federal funding.
“While the Biden administration has pushed progressive gender ideology to include biological men in women’s sports under Title IX, conservatives in the House are fighting to protect women’s right to compete,” Johnson told The Daily Signal.
“We will not stand by and tolerate the erosion of safe, fair, and equal competition in women’s sports,” he added. “I look forward to hosting this important conversation with women who have led on this issue to protect women and girls.”
The speaker’s panel is one of several events in Washington this week pushing for fairness in women’s sports. On Tuesday, Independent Women’s Forum will hold a rally at The Bullpen sports bar for the organization’s Our Bodies, Our Sports “Take Back Title IX” Summer 2024 Bus Tour, where women’s advocates, including current and former athletes and coaches, will speak.
Gaines, who is a 12-time All-American NCAA swimmer, former USA champion gymnast Jennifer Sey, and Olympic swimming champion and Emmy award-winning sports broadcaster Donna de Varona are among the speakers.
The event will also feature music by country artist Alexis Wilkins.
Last week, vandals attacked the Independent Women’s Forum “Take Back Title IX” bus (which features the faces of prominent women athletes like Gaines and swimmer Paula Scanlan) during the night and defaced the bus with pro-transgender slogans. The vandalism took place after an Our Bodies, Our Sports rally in North Carolina, the group said in a release.
? ATTACK ON FEMALE ATHLETES ON TOUR ? BUS TOUR THREATENED:
— Independent Women's Forum (@IWF) June 21, 2024
Overnight vandals violated nearly every inch of the Our Bodies, Our Sports #TakeBackTitleIX bus in Chapel Hill, NC. Egged & defaced with profanity & anti-woman messages. Radical gender ideologues on a mission to erase… pic.twitter.com/S83OVpHHaZ
The Biden administration on April 19 released its rewrite of Title IX, claiming that the highly controversial changes advance “Title IX’s promise of ensuring that no person experiences sex discrimination, including sex-based harassment or sexual violence, in federally funded education.”
The Biden rewrite of the 50-year-old civil rights law redefines sex to include gender identity and sexual orientation, thereby allowing men in girls’ and women’s restrooms, locker rooms, housing accommodations, and educational programs. It also opens the door for men to play on girls’ and women’s sports teams and endangers educational institutions that receive federal funding but choose to protect women’s spaces.
In May, former President Donald Trump vowed to end Biden’s rewrite of Title IX “on Day One” if he should win the presidential election in November.
“We’re going to end it on Day One,” the former president promised during an interview with the conservative Philadelphia-based radio show “Kayal and Company.”
“Don’t forget,” he said, “that was done as an order from the president. That came down as an executive order. And we’re going to change it. On Day One, it’s going to be changed.”
The post EXCLUSIVE: Speaker Johnson, Advocates to Hold DC Panel on Protecting Women’s Sports appeared first on The Daily Signal.
WASHINGTON — Former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard accused corporate media outlets of parroting “propaganda” talking points from the White House regarding controversial videos of President Joe Biden.
Gabbard, who ran as a candidate for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, spoke with The Daily Signal on Friday at the Road to Majority conference in Washington, D.C., where she addressed the Biden White House dismissing videos highlighting Biden’s declining mental acuity as “cheap fakes.”
“It made me laugh, because I’m obviously familiar with how the mainstream propaganda media works,” said Gabbard, who served four terms in the House as a Democrat, but has since become an independent. “And when you look at the montage of all of these different people, on many cable networks or broadcast networks, and they’re literally all using the same talking point. They warn misinformation, disinformation—[but] they are doing it right now.”
“We are not stupid, and I think that’s the thing that is most fascinating to me. They really think that we are that stupid, to buy their spin on the unfortunate reality of what we’re seeing, which is President Biden’s deteriorating condition.”
A number of recent videos of Biden at various public events show the president looking confused, freezing up, or wandering away from the location where he’s supposed to speaking or standing. At a D-Day anniversary event in France, for example, videos show him turning away from a group of other world leaders. Another video, at a campaign fundraiser, shows former President Barack Obama leading him off stage.
The White House has repeatedly claimed that such videos are edited.
Joe Biden highlights in Normandy on the 80th anniversary of D-Day:
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) June 6, 2024
– Sits in an invisible chair
– Forgets where his seat is
– Talks about how many Russians died in Ukraine
– Gets pulled away by Docta Jill as Macron greets D-Day veterans. pic.twitter.com/sWFsYpt1o5
“It’s also very insulting to the folks, the viewers who are watching it,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told MSNBC on Tuesday. “And so, we believe we have to call that out. We’ve been calling it ‘cheap fakes.’ That is something that came directly from the media outlets in calling it that, the fact-checkers … calling it that. And so we’re certainly going to be really, really clear about that as well. And calling it out from where we are, from where we stand.”
White House spokesman Andrew Bates similarly told Fox New Digital that the videos are the products of “discredited right-wing critics” of the president.
“Their panicked reaction to mainstream reporters, including at The Washington Post, NBC News, and PolitiFact, citing misinformation experts taking anti-Biden cheap fakes apart says more than we ever could,” Bates told Fox News Digital.
The post ‘We’re Not Stupid’: Tulsi Gabbard Slams ‘Propaganda’ Media for Parroting White House ‘Cheap Fakes’ Rhetoric appeared first on The Daily Signal.
Since the June 2022 leak of the draft Supreme Court opinion indicating Roe v. Wade would soon be overturned, pro-life pregnancy resource centers have been under attack from pro-abortion vandals.
But now, the pregnancy resource centers face a newer enemy—state officials partnering with activists organizations to take them down.
Teresa Larkin, vice chairman of the Pregnancy Care Alliance of Massachusetts, tells “The Daily Signal Podcast” that the Massachusetts Department of Health and activists groups are collaborating in a “million-dollar smear campaign” using state funds to warn pregnant women away from pregnancy resource centers.
“They’re not focusing on what we do, but on the fact that we don’t provide abortions,” she explained, as she discussed the criticism that pro-life pregnancy centers receive from liberal activists and politicians, such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. “That seems to be their big problem.”
“We’re determined,” she added, describing the physical attacks on numerous Massachusetts pregnancy help centers after Roe was overturned. “Most of us, we’re Christians, we trust God to protect us, so we basically said, ‘We’re not going to be deterred. We’re not going to be scared off. Women and men and children and babies need us. And so we’re going to keep going.’”
Listen to the podcast below:
The post The Left’s War on Pro-Life Pregnancy Centers appeared first on The Daily Signal.
FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—Republican senators are introducing a resolution on Tuesday to celebrate the second anniversary of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling, in which the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
The effort to commemorate Roe’s overturn is led by Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and joined by a number of other Republican senators, including Mike Lee of Utah, Tommy Tuberville and Katie Britt of Alabama, James Lankford of Oklahoma, Ted Budd of North Carolina, and Steve Daines of Montana.
Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., will introduce companion legislation in the House.
“I will always support the sanctity of life,” Rubio told The Daily Signal on Tuesday. “This anniversary serves as a time to celebrate the great work that has been achieved by the pro-life movement and reaffirm our commitment to support families and protect the unborn.”
Under the resolution, the Senate would commemorate the two years since the ruling, celebrating “the millions of lives that will be saved as a result of the ruling in Dobbs,” committing to “protecting the unalienable right to life and guarding unborn lives against lethal violence,” as well as to “supporting families, including new and expectant mothers and their children.”
The Senate would also commit to “proclaiming the humanity of the unborn, consistent with the findings of modern science and the unswerving demands of justice.”
The Supreme Court overturned its 1973 ruling in Roe in a historic 5-4 ruling on June 24, 2022.
The high court’s dramatic ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization was not a surprise to either side of the abortion debate, due to the May 2, 2022, leak of Justice Samuel Alito’s draft majority opinion indicating that Roe would be overturned.
That leak prompted months of protests outside the homes of some Supreme Court justices. It also prompted a California man to travel across the country in an assassination attempt on Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
Authorities arrested Nicholas John Roske, then 26, near Kavanaugh’s home in the middle of the night on June 8, 2022, after the opinion leaked in May but before it was announced. Roske had traveled from California to Maryland armed with weapons and burglary tools to try to kill the justice, according to a Justice Department affidavit.
The affidavit describing Roske’s arrest notes that “an inventory search of the seized suitcase and backpack revealed a black tactical chest rig and tactical knife, a Glock 17 pistol with two magazines and ammunition, zip ties, a hammer, screwdriver, nail punch, crowbar, pistol light, duct tape, hiking boots with padding on the outside of the soles, and other items.”
Conservatives have repeatedly condemned local and federal prosecutors for failing to enforce laws against intimidation of federal judges.
Roske’s assassination ambitions flared after he saw the justices’ addresses posted online, he told authorities. Shortly after the Dobbs leak, the radical pro-abortion group Ruth Sent Us posted the justices’ addresses and began urging protesters to go to the homes of the “six extremist justices, three in Virginia and three in Maryland.”
Those justices were Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Neil Gorsuch, along with Kavanaugh.
“If you’d like to join or lead a peaceful protest, let us know,” Ruth Sent Us said. “Our 6-3 extremist Supreme Court routinely issues rulings that hurt women, racial minorities, LGBTQ+ and immigrant rights. We must rise up to force accountability using a diversity of tactics.”
ShutDownDC, a leftist protest group that has protested at the family homes of Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and commentator Tucker Carlson, also called for protesting at the justices’ homes and even offered bounties for sightings of the justices.
Far-left protesters Our Rights DC and Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights joined these groups in targeting the justices’ homes, even though 18 U.S. Code 1507 forbids picketing or parading “in or near a building or residence occupied or used by such judge, juror, witness, or court officer” with the intent of intimidating or influencing that person.
The Supreme Court leaker has not been identified.
“I personally have a pretty good idea who is responsible, but that’s different from the level of proof that is needed to name somebody,” Alito said in remarks to George Mason University in late April 2023.
The post EXCLUSIVE: Republicans Call for Commemoration of Historic Overturning of Roe v. Wade appeared first on The Daily Signal.
The Department of Justice is targeting a Texas whistleblower who exposed Texas Children’s Hospital secretly performing attempted gender-transition procedures on children.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas announced Monday that it had indicted 34-year-old Eithan Haim for “obtaining protected individual health information for patients that were not under his care and without authorization.”
If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 maximum possible fine.
Texas Children’s had publicly said in March 2022 that it would no longer perform attempted gender-transition procedures on kids. In May 2023, Haim provided journalist Christopher Rufo with documents showing that Texas Children’s was “lying to the public about the existence of its transgender-medicine program,” as Haim later revealed in an explosive January 2024 piece.
“I worked at the hospital as a surgery resident, and I knew that these interventions didn’t stop,” Haim wrote. “Three days after the announcement, a surgeon implanted a hormone device in a healthy 11-year-old girl for gender dysphoria. Over the next year, the frequency of these procedures increased, and potentially hundreds more children received hormone interventions for gender dysphoria.”
“Meantime, the director of a program that supposedly no longer existed was given the opportunity to speak at the hospital’s most prestigious lecture series in January 2023,” he continued. “I knew that it was my moral responsibility to expose what was happening to these children.”
Haim told The Free Press that before he gave Rufo any of the documents, he made sure that the patient’s names and identifying information were redacted (to protect himself from violating HIPAA and to protect the patients’ privacy).
The very next day after Rufo published Haim’s (then anonymous) May 2023 expose, the Texas Legislature banned these experimental gender-transition attempts for minors.
A month later, two federal agents came to Haim’s home to speak with him. They told him that he was a “potential target” of an investigation into federal criminal violations related to medical records.
“It was clear to me that this was a political investigation; I refused to submit to an interview without an attorney,” he wrote in City Journal.
After this, Haim went public with his story.
“To these agents, the prosecutor, and their political handlers, I was a criminal because I had told the truth,” he wrote. “It didn’t matter that we exposed the fact that the largest children’s hospital in the world was lying to the public about the existence of a program in which children were manipulated, mutilated, and even sterilized. It didn’t matter that the practice that they were lying about had now become illegal. It didn’t matter that I had committed no crime.”
“None of this mattered, I believe, because I had exposed a truth that threatened their ideology,” Haim added. “This was the reason for their frightening show of force. The intent was to intimidate me. If I agreed to stay silent, though, I would be legitimizing their lies and sacrificing the truth. Instead, I decided to fight back.”
Haim is now set to make his initial appearance before U.S. Magistrate Yvonne Y. Ho in Houston, Texas.
“The four-count indictment alleges Haim obtained personal information including patient names, treatment codes and the attending physician from Texas Children’s Hospital’s (TCH) electronic system without authorization,” says the U.S. Attorney’s Office release. “He allegedly obtained this information under false pretenses and with intent to cause malicious harm to TCH.”
Texas Children’s did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Daily Signal.
Haim joined “The Daily Signal Podcast” in March to share his story.
“What’s going to happen now is we’re going to do everything we can, [with] every fiber of my being, to hold them accountable,” Haim told The Daily Signal at the time. “We’re never going to stop until we succeed. So they thought they were going to intimidate me. They thought I was going to bend the knee to their evil ideology, like most doctors would have done. But as they were coming to find out, they had knocked on the wrong door.”
Haim is one of a number of Americans who have faced DOJ charges related to hot-button culture war issues. Armed FBI agents arrested Mark Houck, a Catholic father of seven and pro-life activist, in front of his children over an incident outside an abortion clinic that had been dismissed by local authorities.
The post Texas Doctor Faces Prison for Whistleblowing on Secret Child Gender Procedures appeared first on The Daily Signal.
Note: This article contains language some readers might find offensive.
The city of Alexandria, Virginia, is drawing fire for painting Pride flags that include transgender symbols over the crosswalks in historic Old Town Alexandria.
The rainbow crosswalks are permanent, City Council member R. Kirk McPike told a local publication, The Zebra.
“Last June, in response to resident requests, I brought a memo before [the] Council, which my colleagues supported, asking staff to put together a proposal for permanent Pride street artwork,” McPike told The Zebra. “Staff brought a proposal to us last fall, which [the] Council approved, leading to these beautiful new crosswalks.”
He also said in a tweet that the unveiling of the rainbow crosswalks was met with “great media fanfare” and an “exciting drag story time” in which men dressed as women in drag read books and danced for children.
In addition to his role on the Alexandria City Council, McPike serves as chief of staff to a California Democratic congressman, Rep. Mark Takano. McPike is married to a man.
He did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
What a great time at the Alexandria Pride Festival! We opened the rainbow crosswalk with great media fanfare, had an exciting drag story time, and dozens of booths offering information and services to the many residents who came by! pic.twitter.com/dykdeAEKPh
— R. Kirk McPike (@KirkMcPike) June 1, 2024
Images of the flags prompted strong criticism from users of X, formerly Twitter.
“Every day is difficult, but June is incredibly hard if you are a parent trying to save your child from the clutches of the trans cult,” tweeted Moms for Liberty co-founder Tiffany Justice.
Every day is difficult but June is incredibly hard if you are a parent trying to save your child from the clutches of the trans cult. https://t.co/PTAoH6w2cL
— Tiffany Justice (@4TiffanyJustice) June 10, 2024
Writer James Lindsay called the gender ideology-promoting crosswalks “a deliberate provocation,” while activist “Billboard Chris,” who advocates against attempted gender-transition procedures for children, argued that the modern era of LGBTQ promotion will “go down in history as the era when humans adopted a sexual deviance and child mutilation cult as the state religion.”
Looks like shit https://t.co/avthLEQxQk
— Chaya Raichik (@ChayaRaichik10) June 10, 2024
Republican communications adviser Sophie Delquie called the move a “disgrace.”
“Historic Old Town, Alexandria painted the trans flag on the crosswalks outside City Hall, *permanently*,” she tweeted. “Historic Old Town was founded in 1749, making it older than Washington DC, Georgetown, and Maryland, and is a landmark to our nation’s history. What a disgrace.”
Historic Old Town, Alexandria painted the trans flag on the crosswalks outside City Hall, *permanently*.
— Sophie Louise Delquié (@SophieDelquie) June 10, 2024
Historic Old Town was founded in 1749, making it older than Washington DC, Georgetown, and Maryland, and is a landmark to our nation’s history.
What a disgrace. https://t.co/PRahDHgPjj
The city of Alexandria kicked off its “Alexandria Pride” activities with a “Pride fair” on June 1 and a “drag story hour” inside City Hall. Images of the drag story hour show toddlers examining a book held by what appears to be a drag queen—a man wearing a wig with makeup on.
“The City offers residents a variety of events and opportunities to celebrate Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer+ (LGBTQ+) Pride Month in June and to recognize LGBTQ+ people and their contributions to Alexandria’s diverse community and the nation,” the city’s website states.
“The Alexandria LGBTQ+ Task Force in partnership with the Alexandria Library, Department of Community and Human Services, and many community partners hosts an annual Alexandria Pride fair,” the website continues. “Previous Fairs have provided information about LGBTQ+ inclusive services in Alexandria, free and confidential health testing and vaccines, LGBTQ+ Family Storytime, art and poetry workshops, music, refreshments and LGBTQ+ Pride swag.”
The post Alexandria Slammed for Painting ‘Permanent’ Trans ‘Pride Artwork’ Over Crosswalks in Historic Old Town appeared first on The Daily Signal.
FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—A new lawsuit alleges that Vermont blocked two families from fostering children, despite the state’s foster care system crisis, because the families held traditional, religious views on gender and sexuality.
Brian and Kaitlyn Wuoti and Michael and Rebecca Gantt accused the Vermont Department for Children and Families of mandating an “ideological position at the expense of children” in a lawsuit filed Tuesday. Both Brian Wuoti and Michael Gantt are pastors, and both families hold traditional, Christian religious views.
The Daily Signal is first reporting the existence of the lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Vermont, Windham Division. The Daily Signal also exclusively sat down with both the Gantt family and the Wuoti family for interviews in Vermont, where they described how they were prevented from adopting or fostering needy children due to their religious beliefs.
“Although the Wuotis and Gantts have adopted five children between them, the Department has determined they are unfit to foster or adopt any child solely due to their religiously inspired and widely held belief that girls cannot become boys or vice versa,” the filing states.
“And Vermont applies this policy categorically—whether applicants want to adopt their grandchild, provide respite care for an infant for just a few hours, or foster a child who shares all of their religious views,” the complaint continues. “Vermont would prefer children have no home than to place them with families of faith with these views.”
Vermont foster officials have described a “desperate need for emergency foster homes” as recently as Dec. 19. In an email obtained by The Daily Signal, Foster/Kin Care Manager Carrie Deem told foster families that she was “reaching out for help,” describing an “urgent” need.
“The raw honesty behind this message is that of desperation,” she wrote in the email, sent shortly before Christmas. “We need you! Family Services is in a crisis beyond what we have seen before.”
Vermont’s own Department for Children and Families website notes that “we always need more foster families in Vermont.” The crisis has become so extreme, particularly due to the opioid endemic, that some children in need of homes have been forced to stay in hospital emergency rooms or police departments.
Typically, there are about 1,060 children in state custody, the Vermont Department for Children and Families told a local outlet in May 2023, and approximately 900 licensed foster families.
The Wuoti parents, inspired by their Christian faith, decided to answer the state’s call to help vulnerable children and first became foster parents in 2014. The lawsuit describes how they “adopted two precious brothers who have become an integral part of their family.”
The Gantt parents, who have four biological children, began fostering in 2016. They have since adopted three “beautiful children,” as the lawsuit says, noting that they “have a heart for children with fetal alcohol syndrome and those born addicted to drugs.”
When the Wuotis sought to renew their license in 2022, the lawsuit says, one caseworker described them as “AMAZING” and said she “probably could not hand pick a more wonderful foster family,” while their licenser said he had “no doubt” they would gladly welcome any child into their home.
“But when the Wuotis politely shared that they were Christian,” the lawsuit states, “and that they could not say or do anything that went against faith-informed views about human sexuality, Vermont revoked their license anyway.”
Similarly, the Department for Children and Families asked the Gantts to take in an emergency placement that involved a baby about to be born to a homeless woman who was addicted to drugs. Before the Gantts could agree to do so, the department sent out an email letting families know that they must accept the State’s views on gender ideology “even if the foster parents hold divergent personal opinions or beliefs,” according to the lawsuit.
“The Gantts responded that they would unconditionally love and support any children placed with them, but they would not forsake their religious beliefs that people should value their God-given bodies,” the lawsuit states. “The Department refused to let the Gantts take the baby in need and instead revoked their license.”
The Gantt and Wuoti lawsuit argues that Vermont Department for Children and Families’ policy not only harms children and “hinders their chance to find forever homes,” it also violates the First Amendment.
“It requires parents to speak the State’s controversial views, while restricting parents’ ability to politely share their commonsense beliefs to any child in any context—categorically excluding disfavored viewpoints from the foster-parent pool entirely,” the filing states. “Vermont’s regulations also target particular religious views for unequal treatment through an exemption-riddled system of individualized assessments.”
The Vermont Department for Children and Families, reached for comment by The Daily Signal, shared some of the segments on gender from its website. Section 200 of the licensing rules states that “all foster parents are prohibited from engaging in any form of discrimination against a foster child based on race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, or disability.”
Section 201.10 calls for applicants and foster parents to show “respect for the worth of all individuals regardless of race, color, national origin, ancestry, culture, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual identity, and physical or mental ability.”
The licensing rules specifically order foster parents to “support children in wearing” any items affirming their racial, cultural, tribal, religious, or gender identity.
Both the Wuotis and the Gantts told The Daily Signal that they would have loved and cherished any children put in their care by the state. But the Department for Children and Families had asked them if they would be open to taking their foster children to pride parades or using preferred pronouns to refer to the children. The Wuotis and the Gantts both said no.
“We were surprised, because they are typically always trying to match children with families as best they can, and so we assumed maybe they would say, ‘Ok, maybe we won’t place an LGBT child with this family,’” said Brian Wuoti.
“We were offered to be reeducated and given the choice that they could either revoke our foster license or we could take some education materials, and they could give us up to a year to change our faith,” added Michael Gantt. “And I said, ‘No, we are not going to change our faith in the next year; absolutely not.’”
Kaitlyn Wuoti said that she herself had experienced gender dysphoria at a young age, saying that she “desperately wanted to be a boy.” Her father affirmed to her that she was, in fact, a girl, but encouraged her to be interested in tomboy pursuits like model cars.
“My parents loved me, let me like the things I liked, never lied to me about who I was, and never encouraged me to hate my own body,” she explained.
The Wuotis believe that background gives them special insight into helping a child struggling with gender dysphoria.
“They … genuinely think that this is the care of these children that are in need, so I understand, in a way, where they are coming from,” Brian Wuoti added. “But we also know, in the way that Katie had been loved and cared for by her parents, that there can be wonderful, flourishing outcomes for children even in a home that doesn’t agree with the state on these issues.”
Watch The Daily Signal’s interviews with the Wuoti and Gantt families here:
The post EXCLUSIVE: Vermont Blocked Christian Families From Fostering Over Gender Ideology, Lawsuit Alleges appeared first on The Daily Signal.
Pro-life activist Heather Idoni received a sentence of 24 months in prison on Wednesday, convicted of federal conspiracy against rights and Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act charges brought by the Justice Department.
Idoni, 59, will spend two years in prison for trying to stop abortions from taking place at a Washington, D.C., area abortion clinic on Oct. 20, 2020. She is mother to 15 children, according to LifeSite news, five of whom are her biological children and 10 of whom she and her husband reportedly adopted from Ukraine.
She told The Epoch Times that she expects to die in prison.
Her sentencing is part of the DOJ’s focus on enforcing the FACE Act against pro-life activists since the June 2022 overturn of Roe v. Wade. Led by Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, the DOJ has charged dozens of pro-life activists for attempting to stop women from aborting their unborn babies.
Idoni is one of several pro-life activists sentenced to prison time in connection to the 2020 incident: pro-life activist Lauren Handy received 57 months in prison, John Hinshaw 21 months, WIlliam Goodman 27 months, Jonathan Darnel 34 months, Herb Geraghty 27 months, and Joan Bell 27 months .
“Federal law is clear: using force, threatening to use force or physically obstructing access to reproductive health care is unlawful,” Clarke said in a release announcing Idoni’s sentence. “People have a First Amendment right to communicate their views but they do not have the right to use chains, locks and obstruction to prevent access to reproductive health care facilities.”
“The Justice Department will continue to protect both patients seeking reproductive health services and providers of those services,” she added.
The DOJ releases on the topic do not include the word “abortion,” but rather use the phrasing “reproductive health.”
BREAKING? Heather Idoni has been sentenced to 24 months in federal prison despite her lawyer begging for home detention due to Heather’s serious health issues.
— PAAU (@PAAUNOW) May 22, 2024
Justice was NOT served today. Free Heather Idoni!
Earlier this month, Republican New Jersey Rep. Chris Smith called on the U.S. Marshals and the Bureau of Prisons to provide proper care to Idoni and fellow pro-life activist Jean Marshall following reports that Idoni had not received proper medical treatment while in the custody of the U.S. Marshals following a stroke.
?Rep Chris Smith has written a letter to the directors of the US Marshals and the BOP demanding proper medical care for Rescuers Jean Marshall and Heather Idonihttps://t.co/VZhFLjpiBj pic.twitter.com/KOQJlVapTT
— PAAU (@PAAUNOW) May 16, 2024
Critics have accused President Joe Biden and the DOJ of weaponizing the FACE Act against pro-lifers while failing to charge pro-abortion criminals for the hundreds of attacks on pregnancy resource centers since the May 2022 leak of the draft Supreme Court opinion indicating Roe would soon be overturned.
Some, among them Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, and Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, have called for the repeal of the FACE Act, arguing that it serves no purpose but to target pro-life activists.
“The Biden administration is using the FACE Act to give pro-life activists and senior citizens lengthy prison terms for nonviolent offenses and protests—all while turning a blind eye to the violence, arson, and riots conducted on behalf of ‘approved’ leftist causes,” Lee told The Daily Signal earlier this month.
“Unequal enforcement of the law is a violation of the law,” he added, “and men and women who try to expose the horrors of abortion are being unjustly persecuted for their motivations.”
The enforcement of the FACE Act is led by Clarke, who, following a report from The Daily Signal, recently admitted that she hid an arrest for a violent incident, and its subsequent expungement, from investigators when she was confirmed to her Justice Department post.
On Monday, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit on Monday against seven pro-life activists and two pro-life organizations alleging that the pro-life organizations, Citizens for a Pro Life Society and Red Rose Rescue, as well as activists Laura Gies, Lauren Handy, Clara McDonald, Monica Miller, Christopher Moscinski, Jay Smith, and Audrey Whipple violated the FACE Act when they sought to stop abortions from taking place at Ohio abortion clinics.
The DOJ’s complaint seeks “compensatory damages, monetary penalties and injunctive relief as provided by the FACE Act.”
Martin Cannon, senior counsel with the Thomas More Society, said in a statement this week that “hardly one week has passed since Lauren Handy was sentenced to 57 months in federal prison, and the Biden Department of Justice is already coming after her again using the FACE Act.”
“‘Red Rose Rescues’ are peaceful events where participants counsel outside the abortion business or walk in and sit with pregnant mothers in abortionists’ waiting rooms, giving them red roses and offering them the help and assistance they need to choose life—in the exact moment when they’re in dire need of compassionate support,” he explained. “These are not threatening or intimidating actions that violate the FACE Act, despite the caricature that the DOJ would like the public to believe.”
The post DOJ Puts Pro-Life Grandmother Behind Bars for Trying to Stop Abortions appeared first on The Daily Signal.
Following the announcement of prison sentences for pro-life activists last week, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit on Monday against seven pro-life activists and two pro-life organizations.
The DOJ’s lawsuit alleges that the pro-life organizations, Citizens for a Pro Life Society and Red Rose Rescue, as well as activists Laura Gies, Lauren Handy, Clara McDonald, Monica Miller, Christopher Moscinski, Jay Smith, and Audrey Whipple, violated the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act when they sought to stop abortions from taking place at Ohio abortion clinics.
Notably, the DOJ does not use the word “abortion,” but rather “reproductive health services”—except in a statement from U.S. Attorney Rebecca C. Lutzko for the Northern District of Ohio.
“Obstructing people from accessing reproductive health care and physically obstructing providers from offering it are unlawful,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke, the head of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, said in a statement.
“Congress passed the FACE Act 30 years ago this month in response to acts of violence, threats of violence and physical obstruction at reproductive health clinics in our country,” she added. “The Civil Rights Division is committed to enforcing federal law to protect the rights of those who seek and those who provide access to reproductive health services.”
The DOJ’s complaint seeks “compensatory damages, monetary penalties and injunctive relief as provided by the FACE Act.”
Handy, one of the activists mentioned in the release, was sentenced to 57 months in prison for trying to stop abortions at a Washington, D.C., abortion clinic. Clarke similarly issued a statement last week celebrating news that Handy and six other pro-life activists would spend time in prison for attempting to stop abortions from taking place.
The FACE Act is a 1994 law that supposedly protects both abortion clinics and pregnancy resource centers, but has been heavily enforced by President Joe Biden’s DOJ against pro-lifers since the June 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade.
The enforcement of the FACE Act is led by Clarke, who, following a report from The Daily Signal, recently admitted that she hid an arrest and its subsequent expungement from investigators when she was confirmed to her Justice Department post.
The president’s critics have accused Biden and the DOJ of weaponizing the FACE Act against pro-lifers while failing to charge pro-abortion criminals for the hundreds of attacks on pregnancy resource centers since the May 2022 leak of the draft Supreme Court opinion indicating that Roe would soon thereafter be overturned.
Some, among them Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, and Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, have called for the repeal of the FACE Act, arguing that it serves no purpose but to target pro-life activists.
“The Biden administration is using the FACE Act to give pro-life activists and senior citizens lengthy prison terms for nonviolent offenses and protests—all while turning a blind eye to the violence, arson, and riots conducted on behalf of ‘approved’ leftist causes,” Lee told The Daily Signal in a Tuesday statement.
“Unequal enforcement of the law is a violation of the law,” he added, “and men and women who try to expose the horrors of abortion are being unjustly persecuted for their motivations.”
The post Biden DOJ Ramps Up War on Pro-Lifers With Lawsuit appeared first on The Daily Signal.
The Defense Department undercounted the number of abortions that it authorized between 2016 and 2020, new data shows.
Following a lawsuit from the Oversight Project, a division of The Heritage Foundation, the Department of Defense said that it had identified a total of 77 abortions performed in military medical treatment facilities (MTFs) during the four-year period between 2016 and 2020. (Heritage founded The Daily Signal in 2014.)
That number includes 17 abortions that had previously not been included in the DOD’s figures.
The babies aborted were either the children of a service member or of the service member’s dependents. Eighteen of the abortions were tied to the Air Force, 28 to the Army, four to the Marines, and 27 to the Navy.
In 2021, the DOD authorized 14 abortions of unborn babies throughout the military—bringing the total number of abortions that the DOD authorized between 2016 and 2021 up to 91.
The Defense Department explained the undercounting by saying in a report shared with the Oversight Project that it began updating its methodology counting the abortions it authorizes in 2021.
“As a result, a yearlong effort, involving data analysts and women’s health subject matter experts, began in early 2021 to review and update the methodology for collection of data related to performance of abortions in military medical treatment facilities (MTFs),” the DOD explained. “The updated methodology identified, and corrected, inadvertent underreporting of authorized abortions.”
Some of the DOD’s methodology updates include developing a new definition of abortion: the “termination” of an unborn baby’s life “that would otherwise result in a live birth.” This new definition does not include the removal of ectopic or molar pregnancies, both of which are nonviable pregnancies. It also does not include miscarriages.
The new methodology also included both active-duty members and their dependents (such as their daughters) who aborted their babies at a military medical treatment facility.
“The methodology utilized for this updated report will be the standard for future reports, in order to ensure consistent methodology and understanding, and will be annually reviewed for new medical or coding updates for processes or procedures,” the report noted. “Additional actions will be identified as necessary to ensure accurate reporting consistent with this methodology.”
The Oversight Project initially sent a Freedom of Information Act request to the DOD a few weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in the Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling.
The lawsuit sought information on whether the abortions DOD was authorizing were “Hyde Amendment-compliant ‘covered’ abortions, meaning if they were performed if the life of the mother was at risk or if the unborn child is result of rape or incest,” Oversight senior investigative counsel Roman Jankowski told The Daily Signal.
“We also requested all records regarding the number of ‘covered’ abortions that are the result of an act of rape and incest that resulted in some type of prosecution under the Uniform Code of Military Justice,” he added. “The DOD did not respond to our FOIA request, forcing the Oversight Project to sue in federal court. These records only provide a partial picture of abortions covered by the DOD, and the Oversight Project will continue to update this as additional records are released.”
The DOD did not immediately respond to requests for comment for this article.
In October 2022, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin released a memorandum for senior Pentagon leadership on “ensuring access to reproductive health care.” That memorandum announced that the Defense Department would establish “travel and transportation allowances for service members and their dependents … to facilitate official travel to access non-covered reproductive health care that is unavailable within the local area of a service member’s permanent duty station.”
The move was a direct response to the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the memo said. It claimed that funding abortion travel would be done in accordance with federal law, but Republicans noted at the time that funding travel and transportation to get abortions through the DOD would “in and of itself violate federal law” and contradict the Defense Department’s “past recognition, interpretation, and implementation of this law.”
“Congress has clearly and consistently acted to prevent the U.S. military from funding elective abortion procedures and services necessitated by those procedures, and DOD has acknowledged and complied with the law,” the Republicans said in 2022 in a letter first reported by The Daily Signal. “We are appalled by the flagrant disregard for the law expressed by the Department in this memorandum.”
And DOD spokesman Charlie Dietz confirmed to The Daily Signal in October 2022 that “if the dependent of a service member lives in a state where abortion access is restricted, the DOD will cover their travel and transportation costs to a location where they can legally receive the care.”
Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., blocked hundreds of military promotions for more than 10 months as pushback to the Pentagon policy promoting abortion, saying that until the policy was changed, he would not approve any military promotions, arguing that the policy is illegal and violates the Hyde Amendment. The Hyde Amendment is a measure dating back to the 1970s that prohibits federal taxpayer funding of most abortions.
The Alabama lawmaker, who received heavy criticism from his Democratic colleagues, ended his holds in December. Tuberville had also come under fire from some GOP senators, who called on him to give up his effort and allow the promotions to move forward despite the Pentagon’s unchanged pro-abortion policy.
But other leaders, including Ryan Williams, president and publisher of The Claremont Review of Books and of The American Mind; Terry Schilling, president of the American Principles Project; and Kevin Roberts, president of The Heritage Foundation, praised Tuberville for his commitment to stand against the Pentagon’s pro-abortion policy, saying that his hold “on military promotions over the Pentagon’s unjust decision to fund abortion tourism is a righteous manifestation of the Senate’s responsibility to scrutinize military leadership.”
The post EXCLUSIVE: Defense Department Admits to Undercounting Abortions It Authorized appeared first on The Daily Signal.
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