WASHINGTON — A pro-life activist targeted by the federal government is likening his treatment by the Biden-Harris administration to that of a “tyrannical dictatorship” as he and others warn about abortion opponents potentially facing a more hostile environment if Vice President Kamala Harris is elected president.
The Family Research Council’s 2024 Pray, Vote, Stand Summit kicked off its first full day of programming at the Omni Shoreham Hotel on Friday. One of the panel discussions was titled “Kamala Harris’ Attacks on Life and the Family.”
The conversation, moderated by Mary Szoch of the FRC’s Center for Human Dignity, focused on actions taken by the Biden-Harris administration targeting pro-life activists and featured said advocates warning about what might happen if Harris wins the presidential election. One of the speakers, pro-life activist Mark Houck, made headlines two years ago after the FBI conducted an early-morning raid on his home in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.
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Houck described to the audience what he saw the morning of the raid, such as the presence of “ten marked and unmarked units on my property all surrounding my house lined up to the road,” as well as “five federal agents with M-16 guns pointed at me” wearing “heavily armored vests.” He also recalled seeing “two battering rams, two SWAT at the back door” along with “20 to 25 federal agents and PA State Troopers” and law enforcement officials from the Bucks County Sheriff’s Office.
Houck recounted how law enforcement told his wife, “We’re taking him with or without a warrant.”
“That’s a sign of tyranny,” he said, adding that when “they wake sleeping children in the middle of the night and arrest their father at gunpoint, that’s a tyrannical dictatorship.”
Houck spent 10 hours in custody “chained to a table” before he was released on his own recognizance, which he characterized as an acknowledgment that he wasn’t a “violent offender,” a “flight risk” or a “threat to the community.”
The father described his time in custody as an effort on the government’s part to “humiliate you, intimidate you and instill fear in you and make an example of you.”
As Houck explained, the raid took place the same day the U.S. Department of Justice released a statement announcing his indictment for alleged violations of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act stemming from an encounter that occurred outside a Planned Parenthood facility in Philadelphia nearly a year earlier.
While the indictment maintained that Houck “twice assaulted a man because he was a volunteer reproductive health care clinic escort” and “forcefully shoved” him to the ground, a GiveSendGo fundraiser set up for Houck tells a different version of events. At the time of the incident, Houck and his then-12-year-old son were praying outside the abortion clinic when “one of the escorts began harassing Mark’s son.”
“They walked down the street away from the entrance to the building. The escort followed them, and when he continued yelling at Mark’s son, Mark pushed him away,” the fundraiser noted.
While a jury found Houck not guilty on federal charges, which spared him from a prison sentence of up to 11 years, the pro-life activist detailed how the early-morning raid has caused his family to experience “PTSD,” referring to post-traumatic stress disorder. Houck and his wife have since filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration.
Szoch cited Houck’s treatment as an example of “what the Biden-Harris DOJ did and what we can expect a Harris DOJ to do should she be elected.”
She added, “We know that it’s not just about the top of the ticket. We know it’s about that person’s entire administration, and in the Biden-Harris administration, we saw the DOJ weaponized. We also saw the FDA remove safety regulations for the abortion drug mifepristone.”
“We also saw the Biden-Harris DOJ say they wouldn’t enforce the Comstock Act, which prevents abortion-inducing drugs from being sent through the mail,” she added.
The third panelist, Catherine Herring, survived her husband’s attempt to poison her and her unborn baby with abortion pills. Szoch attributed the situation Herring found herself in to “the Biden-Harris administration removing those safety regulations” on the abortion pills.
Szoch began the panel by noting that shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision determining that the U.S. Constitution does not contain a right to abortion, Harris praised Democratic state attorneys general “rightly taking on pregnancy resource centers,” which she condemned for their purported “predatory practices.”
Janet Durig of the Capitol Hill Pregnancy Center explained how shortly after the Dobbs decision, her banquet was interrupted by eight pro-abortion activists who “found their way into empty seats” and screamed profane messages that included the phrase “blood on your hands” every time she tried to speak. Durig expressed concern that “If the right person doesn’t get into office,” the hostile treatment experienced by her and other pro-life pregnancy centers would “escalate.”
Szoch insisted that “there needs to be a fairness with how the FACE Act is enforced,” suggesting the existence of a double standard when it comes to the persecution of pro-abortion activists who violate the law by targeting those who provide “reproductive health services” and pro-life activists who do the same. After Szoch noted that she “didn’t see anything about those people being prosecuted,” Durig quipped, “Nothing was in the newspaper about it.”
Durig expressed hope that the next administration would “set a tone that hasn’t been set in a very long time.” She lamented that “the negativity out there is so hateful that you almost don’t want to tell someone that you work in a Christian pregnancy center.”
Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: ryan.foley@christianpost.com