Six anti-abortion activists, include two previously pardoned by Donald Trump, will stand trial on state charges that they trespassed on an abortion clinic’s property and refused to leave.
The six, who were also charged with criminal conspiracy, were due in court on Wednesday, but waived their right to appear – a move that is tantamount to pleading not guilty, according to lawyer John Williamson. A trial date has not been set.
Abortion rights advocates say anti-abortion activists have become far bolder over the last several months, after the Trump administration announced it would curtail enforcement of the law historically used to prosecute similar disruptions to abortion providers’ work.
The group was arrested in July when two women walked into the Delaware County Women’s Center, an abortion clinic in Upland, Pennsylvania, for scheduled appointments. But they were not really looking for abortions. Instead, they were there to usher other anti-abortion activists into the clinic, according to police reports and an eyewitness.
The activists started trying to talk patients out of having abortions, the reports and the eyewitness said. When clinic staff asked them to leave, the activists refused – and started to sprinkle a clear liquid and white powder around the abortion clinic. When the police arrived, they ultimately arrested six protesters.
The clear liquid and white powder, they told police, were holy water and salt.
These clinic “invasions” – as abortion rights supporters call them – or “rescues”, as they are known among anti-abortion activists, are nothing new. During these actions, anti-abortion activists enter clinics and attempt to interfere with services, often through trying to talk women out of getting abortions, loudly praying, or physically blocking staffers’ and patients’ way. Between 1977 and 2024, abortion opponents carried out more than 500, according to the National Abortion Federation.
Days after Trump took office, the Department of Justice announced that it would limit use of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (Face) Act, which creates federal penalties for people who go beyond peaceful protest to threaten, obstruct or injure someone who is trying to access a reproductive health clinic. Enacted in 1994, the law was supposed to protect clinics against a rising tide of anti-abortion harassment and violence.
But the Department of Justice claimed that the Face Act had been unfairly used to target anti-abortion protesters, to the point of ignoring attacks on crisis pregnancy centers, anti-abortion facilities that aim to convince people to continue their pregnancies. (The Biden administration used the Face Act to prosecute multiple people for vandalizing such centers.) Face Act prosecutions are now only permitted in “extraordinary circumstances” or in cases involving death, serious bodily harm or significant property damage.
The department also dismissed several ongoing Face Act cases, while Trump pardoned almost two dozen people convicted under the Face Act.
For some abortion rights supporters, Trump’s actions felt like putting a target on their backs. None of the defendants involved in the Pennsylvania case are charged with breaking the Face Act.
“Every day, I walk through a protest. I’m very comfortable seeing protests. I’ve participated in protests. I recognize the benefits of those,” said Amanda Kifferly, vice-president for abortion access and director of security at the Women’s Center. But, Kifferly continued: “It is not normal for someone to come into your office and pretend to be someone. It is also not normal for someone to come into your office and sprinkle clear fluids and white powder.”
Williamson is representing Bell. In his view, her actions do not constitute a crime, much less a potential Face Act violation.
“I think it’s ridiculous to bring any kind of charge against someone who is only trying to save some lives,” Williamson said. None of the lawyers for the other defendants returned a request for comment.
Bell and Goodman are the first beneficiaries of Trump’s Face Act pardons to return to entering abortion clinics, according to Melissa Fowler, the National Abortion Federation’s chief program officer. But others involved in Face Act cases have also vowed to resume such actions. In one case detailed in court records, a man who barricaded himself inside a Pennsylvania Planned Parenthood clinic’s bathroom for more than three hours – forcing the clinic to cancel almost 50 appointments – pledged right afterward to “do it again”. (The justice department has dismissed his case.)
So far in 2025, anti-abortion activists have carried out six “invasions” and three blockades in 2025, compared with five “invasions” and one blockade in all of 2024, according to preliminary numbers shared with the Guardian by the National Abortion Federation. Clinics have also reported 67,155 incidents of threatening or suspicious mail, calls and social media comments, compared with fewer than 2,000 in 2024.
“There’s the feeling, for protesters, of a little bit of invincibility,” said one abortion provider, who does not work at the Women’s Center, of Trump’s decision to curtail enforcement of the Face Act. The provider asked to speak anonymously because of a recent increase in threats.
The Trump administration is now using the Face Act in other ways. Last week, it cited the law in a first-of-its-kind lawsuit against pro-Palestinian demonstrators who protested at a New Jersey synagogue. Although the language of the Face Act also protects “place of religious worship”, the federal government has never used the act to do so, a justice department official confirmed at a press conference announcing the charges.
A Department of Justice spokesperson declined to comment on this story.
