Subcommittee Ranking Member Scanlon’s Opening Statement at Hearing on Republicans’ Effort to Eliminate FACE Act Safeguards

Washington, D.C. (April 28, 2026)—Today, Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon, Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government, delivered opening remarks at a hearing examining the public safety implications associated with failure to enforce the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act. 

Below are Subcommittee Ranking Member Scanlon’s remarks, as prepared for delivery, at today’s hearing.

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WATCH Ranking Member Scanlon’s opening statement. 

Ranking Member Mary Gay Scanlon
Subcommittee on Constitution and Limited Government
“From Tool to Weapon: The FACE Act and the Dangers of Federalizing Criminal Law”
April 28, 2026

Today is the third time in as many years that this subcommittee, under Republican leadership, is holding a hearing to undermine the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, or the “FACE Act.” 

Fourth, if you count our markup of the Chairman’s FACE Act Repeal Act last year. 

Eliminating the FACE Act is a right-wing policy priority drawn directly from the extremist “Project 2025 Manifesto.” Page 558 to be precise.  

But, no matter how many times enemies of reproductive rights try to rewrite history or drum up new conspiracies about the FACE Act, the facts stay the same. We continue to see criminal obstruction of and threats, intimidation, and violence against abortion providers and women seeking those services.

And the FACE Act is needed now as much as it’s ever been. 

In 1994, Congress passed the FACE Act with bipartisan support to address rising violence against abortion and reproductive healthcare providers. Over the years, that violence has included:

• arsons;
• bombings;
• chemical attacks;
• blockades; and
• murders and attempted murders of abortion providers and bystanders.  

Specifically, the FACE Act protects the people who work in or seek care at facilities providing access to abortion and other reproductive health services—as well as places of religious worship. It protects them from:

• the use of force;
• threats;
• intimidation; or
• physical obstruction.

But, for decades, the same coordinated, extreme, anti-choice forces whose violent conduct created the need for the FACE Act in the first place have tried to undermine the law as part of their unpopular mission to gut access to reproductive healthcare and effectively ban abortion in the United States. 

Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, anti-abortion extremists have been emboldened, fueling a resurgence of violence and harassment against abortion providers.  

A report from the National Abortion Federation documented 777 instances of obstruction of clinics in 2024. 

And, in the last two years, there have been 296 incidents of death threats and other threats of violence aimed at abortion providers and their patients. 

For years, our Republican colleagues have tried to warp reality. And today’s hearing is more of the same. They’re claiming that people were arrested under the FACE Act for “praying.” That’s just not true. Praying isn’t unlawful conduct. 

But, you can’t mask unlawful conduct like making violent threats or blockading entrances to clinics with performative prayer. Those threats and physical harassment are crimes. And they jeopardize people’s access to potentially lifesaving care. 

Take, for example, one Michigan woman’s story. After struggling with infertility, she finally got pregnant. But, at 12 weeks, she and her husband got devastating news. Their baby had an extremely rare abnormality. He wouldn’t survive after birth. If she continued the pregnancy, her ability to have children in the future would be at risk. And her life would be at risk, too. So, she and her husband made the decision to terminate the pregnancy. 

On the morning of her appointment at a local reproductive healthcare clinic, she arrived to find people blocking the entrance. A group approached them, trying to force her to take graphic pamphlets and telling her she could stop a murder from happening. The harassment continued even after the couple moved their car. She and her husband had to leave out of fear for their safety, even though she needed immediate medical attention. They were only able to return after police arrived, arrested the disruptors, and removed them.

In another instance, five anti-abortion extremists forced their way into a clinic in Virginia and attempted to grab a patient. The patient’s friend had to step in and help the clinic staff usher the invaders out.

We’re talking about women and their loved ones facing terror, threats of injury, and having to physically fight people off, just to receive legal healthcare for serious medical needs. It shouldn’t be that way. And that’s why we have the FACE Act.   

But Republicans have seized on a false narrative that the Biden Department of Justice selectively enforced the law. That’s just not true.

This month, as Chairman Roy related, Trump’s Department of Justice issued a report claiming that the former administration used the FACE Act to go after supposedly peaceful, pro-life protestors. 

I should note that this report has been variously described across multiple outlets as a: 

• “cherry-picked,”
• “shoddy,”
• “misleading,”
• “hypocritical,”
• “inaccurate,”
• “incomplete,”
• “distortion of the truth” that disregards multiple court rulings and jury verdicts.

 It parrots longstanding anti-abortion conspiracies, particularly those championed in the extremist Project 2025 Manifesto. 

 There’s no credible evidence that prior administrations selectively enforced the FACE Act against anti-abortion protesters. 

 And to the extent there’s any disparity in FACE Act prosecutions of attacks on abortion clinics versus pro-life facilities, it’s simply a reflection of the facts.

 Abortion providers and their patients face significantly higher threats and levels of violence than other entities covered by the statute. 

 The actions of the Trump Administration and its right-wing allies, including our Republican colleagues, to undermine the FACE Act, have invited anti-abortion extremists to carry out even more dangerous and hostile acts against women seeking healthcare and their medical providers.

And, the president’s firing of lawyers who prosecuted FACE Act violations, along with pardons for people who were convicted of harassing and attacking abortion providers and their patients, only further emboldens people to commit these crimes. 

 In fact, we’ve already seen pardoned anti-abortion activists go back to commit similar acts. 

 Last July, six people, two of whom received Trump pardons for FACE Act violations, were arrested after invading a clinic in my district in Delaware County, Pennsylvania. They lied to get into the facility and then harassed patients and staff until the police removed them. 

 If my Republican colleagues want to examine the real dangers of an out-of-control executive using the government to attack its political enemies, they should be holding hearings to examine what the Trump Administration is doing right now. 

 How about deploying American troops and armed and masked federal agents to our city streets to shut down opposition and threatening, assaulting, and even killing people who would hold them accountable? How about using warrantless searches to arrest American citizens in their own homes, or labeling people who disagree with the president’s policies as domestic terrorists under NSPM-7, putting their names on secret government lists and demanding that tech companies hand over the identities of Americans who organize or share their dissenting opinions online? And if we’re talking about federal intrusion into areas reserved to the states, how about this administration's attempts to federalize our elections and seize state voter rolls?

Why aren’t we holding hearings about that?

 In politicizing a law meant to keep all Americans safe, anti-abortion extremists are openly attempting to lay the groundwork for a nationwide abortion ban. Their goal is to: 

• scare;
• threaten; and
• physically obstruct women from accessing reproductive healthcare. 

But, the majority of Americans agree. All women deserve the freedom to work with their doctors and their families to decide on the healthcare that’s right for them, without the meddling of radical politicians or religious extremists.  

 And no one should be denied medical care because of someone else’s religious or political beliefs.  

 I yield back.