Last Friday, an FBI SWAT team raided the home of pro-life counselor Mark Houck in Kintnersville, Pennsylvania. They arrested and charged him for an incident that took place between him and an abortion clinic escort a year ago -- charges that had already been dropped in local courts.
Houck has never denied the October 2021 confrontation, when he pushed the abortion supporter, 72-year-old Bruce Love, back away from his 12-year-old son because Love had been speaking crudely to the boy.
Now, Houck has pleaded not guilty to violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances law, or the FACE Act.
This over-the-top weekend raid took place after President Biden in a recent speech basically called Mark Houck and millions of other pro-lifers like him "domestic terrorists" who need to be "eradicated" from society. (See earlier story)
Many see the raid as evidence that that the Biden administration is targeting pro-life Americans in an attempt to silence them. And earlier this week, just days after the 20 heavily-armed federal agents stormed Houck's home, Brian Gibson of Pro-Life Action Ministries tells AFN his own organization had two sidewalk counselors praying outside the St. Paul, Minnesota Planned Parenthood, when Henry, one pro-life advocate who was the victim in an incident similar to Houck's, was approached by federal agents.
"These two female FBI agents had come, and they went right over to him and started questioning him," Gibson reports. "Now at that point, our sidewalk counselors didn't know they were FBI agents, but they presented their credentials to the prayer supporter, and then after they questioned him for a little bit, they left."
He is concerned that the FBI is looking to pursue bogus FACE charges and misuse a federal law to prosecute Henry for the incident, even though he was and remains clear of any wrongdoing.
"I don't know what's happened since then or why or what the FBI was doing there, but it just seemed very odd that they showed up at all," Gibson submits. It is concerning, he says, because "we don't see the FBI out on the sidewalks, and then secondly that they went and spoke to this particular individual."
So with back-to-back cases of the FBI targeting pro-life prayer warriors and counselors in two separate states, he wonders whether other arrests and home raids should be expected.
