Three Pro-Life Activists Sentenced to Probation for 2021 Tennessee Abortion Clinic Protest

Three more pro-life activists were sentenced on Tuesday for participating in a 2021 abortion clinic protest in Mount Juliet, Tennessee. 

Eva Zastrow, 24,  James Zastrow, 25, and Paul Place, 24, were sentenced in federal court to three years of probation and will serve the first 90 days of their sentences on home detention, ABC News reported. The three activists, along with 87-year-old Eva Edl — the survivor of a communist concentration camp — were convicted in April of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act during a peaceful protest at the Carafem Health Center Clinic. They faced up to a year in prison and up to $10,000 in fines. 

In all, 11 people have been convicted for participating in the protest. President Joe Biden’s pro-abortion administration announced in October 2022 that it had charged all 11 activists involved in the March 5, 2021, “blockade” of the Carafem Health Center Clinic. Attorneys for the activists said they were conducting a “rescue” and had gathered on the second floor of the office building where the clinic is located to pray, sing hymns, and urge women not to go through with abortions. The peaceful protest was also live-streamed on Facebook.

Abortion has since been outlawed in Tennessee with limited exceptions, and the clinic has paused in-person care, according to its website.

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Six of the activists were found guilty in January of a misdemeanor FACE Act charge, as well as a felony conspiracy against rights charge, which carried with it the possibility of up to 11 years in prison and fines up to $250,000.

Of those six, Paul Vaughn — a father of 11 — and Dennis Green were sentenced in July to three years of supervised release; Coleman Boyd was given five years of probation and was fined $10,000, and Calvin Zastrow, considered one of the main organizers, was given a six-month prison sentence followed by three years of supervised release. 

The sentencing for three other activists has been postponed.

“Eva Edl, Heather Idoni [59] and Chester Gallagher [73] are preparing for an August trial in Michigan on similar charges,” according to the report. “One person, Caroline Davis, pleaded guilty in October to misdemeanor charges and cooperated with prosecutors. She was sentenced to three years of probation in April.”

Since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has notably charged more pro-life activists under the FACE Act than pro-abortion activists despite the fact that FBI Director Christopher Wray admitted in November 2022 that approximately 70 percent of abortion-related threats of violence in the United States since the Dobbs decision have been against pro-life groups.

The FACE Act, which “prohibits threats of force, obstruction and property damage intended to interfere with reproductive health care services,” was written to apply to pro-life pregnancy resource centers and places of worship. However, since former President Bill Clinton signed the FACE Act into law in 1994, 97 percent of all 211 FACE Act cases have been against pro-life activists, according to the Daily Caller. 

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“At least 55 of those cases were prosecuted during the Biden administration, only five of which involved attacks on pregnancy resource centers,” according to the outlet, which cited data that Rep. Chip Roy’s (R-TX) office provided. “In less than four years, Biden’s DOJ has accounted for over a quarter of all FACE prosecutions and approximately 24 percent of cases targeting pro-life activists, the data demonstrates.”

In response to the Biden administration’s aggressive prosecution of pro-life activists, Roy introduced legislation in September 2023 to repeal the FACE Act. Roy said that while the law was designed to protect abortion facilities, it has instead been weaponized by Biden’s DOJ to target pro-life activists.

Former President Donald Trump also pledged — in 2023 and again in 2024 — to create a task force to review and potentially pardon or commute the sentences of every “political prisoner who’s been unjustly persecuted by the Biden administration” if he is elected. 

Katherine Hamilton is a political reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on X @thekat_hamilton.