The College Fix

Pro-lifers: Feds not equally applying law, harsher penalties for supporters of unborn

A former Bowling Green State University student will serve two years of probation and pay a $2,000 fine after admitting to vandalizing a pro-life charity in Ohio.

Whitney Durant, 20, (pictured) who also goes by the name Soren Monroe, received the sentence at a hearing Tuesday after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, WTVG reports.

Durant “intentionally damaged the property of HerChoice, a pregnancy center located in Bowling Green, Ohio, by defacing the clinic’s building, spray painting the words, ‘LIARS,’ ‘Fund Abortion,’ ‘Abort God,’ and ‘Jane’s Revenge’” on April 15, 2023, the Department of Justice stated in a news release.

“Durant was a Bowling Green State University student” at the time, according to the department. A Students for Life of America blog post this week referred to Durant as a former student.

Morgan Reece, president of Bowling Green’s pro-life club Falcons for Life, said she is happy Durant was held accountable, but she wishes the punishment was more than a “slap on the wrist.”

“The assistant U.S. prosecuting attorney told me and the Bowling Green Pregnancy Center’s executive director that Durant will not be getting jail time since this is only her first offense,” Reece wrote on the Students for Life blog.

Reece said pro-life advocates have gone to prison for “much less,” and mentioned four recently convicted under the same law for “singing and praying outside abortion facilities.” They could be sentenced to “six months in prison, five years of supervised release, and fines up to $10,000,” Fox News reports.

The Federalist correspondent Matt Kittle also pointed out these double standards by citing a case involving Hridindu Sankar Roychowdhury, who was convicted of firebombing the Wisconsin Family Action office in 2022 because of its pro-life stance.

A federal judge sentenced Roychowdhury, a former University of Wisconsin researcher, to 90 months in prison Wednesday, according to a DOJ news release.

Meanwhile, Kittle wrote:

In late January, six pro-life activists were convicted on charges of violating the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, for blocking the entrance to an abortion facility in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee in 2021. The FACE Act, signed into law by President Bill Clinton, punishes “violent, threatening damaging, and obstructive conduct intended to injure, intimidate, or interfere with the right to seek, obtain, or provide” abortions.

For their peaceful demonstration — that included hymns and prayer — the defendants each face a maximum sentence of more than a decade in prison and three years of supervised released, plus up to $260,000 in fines.

Reece said the FACE Act is being “weaponized” against pro-life advocates.

“How can a pro-abortion vandal face no prison time while pro-lifers face years of prison time for peacefully praying and singing?” she wrote.

MORE: Former terrorism officials question ‘radicalization’ study that lists peaceful pro-lifers

IMAGE: HerChoice; Whitney Durant/Facebook

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