The so-called "Trenton Four" were attempting to save lives at a New Jersey Planned Parenthood in 2018. Fr. Fidelis Moscinski (a member of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal), Will Goodman, Patrice Woodward, and Matthew Connolly were arrested and charged with defiant trespass for participating in a Red Rose Rescue on December 22, 2018
"It was a good, old-fashioned sit-in like those we saw during the civil rights movement in the '60s," details Christopher Ferrara of the Thomas More Society, the law firm representing the pro-lifers. "The object was to sit in the waiting room where women were waiting to basically kill their unborn children and tell them about the problems they would face in terms of psychological sequalae from post-abortion syndrome. There is, for example, an increased risk of suicide, drug abuse, depression, [and] a life of regret for having done this."
In New Jersey, an abortion cannot be performed without the woman's informed consent, and those who were subjected to abortions without informed consent have a right to make a claim for damages.
In this case, Ferrara argued that by supplying information that the abortion mills withhold, the Trenton Four were simply providing informed consent. In other words, their activism was based in necessity. Ferrara's briefings and arguments persuaded the Trenton Municipal Court to allow the defense, which the state would have had to disprove beyond a reasonable doubt.
"The judge was going to allow us to assert this defense as a defense to the charge of defiant trespass," Ferrara relays. "But as things worked out, by the time this case was approaching trial, the prosecutor made the decision to drop the charges against all four."
So the case has ended in a termination by dismissal.
