Eight people have been charged with allegedly preventing access to a reproductive services clinic, such as abortion, in Michigan, United States, the country’s Justice Department reported on Wednesday.
The defendants, who are four men and four women, are accused of committing “civil rights abuses and violations of the Freedom of Access to Entry to Clinics (FACE) Act”, the portfolio said. Justice in a statement.
Violation of this rule can result in penalties ranging from less than a year in prison and a $100,000 fine to 10 years in prison and even life imprisonment, if there were injuries or deaths.
These eight people are linked to the blockade of a clinic in Sterling Heights, Michigan in August 2020 to prevent patients from entering and receiving reproductive treatment and services.
One of the defendants is said to have publicized the blockade of the center on social networks, in addition to showing his actions in a live broadcast on the Internet with another colleague.
The indictment alleges that all defendants violated the FACE rule by physically embarrassing and intimidating health center employees and patients.
Later, in April 2021, two of them returned to act in the same way in another clinic.
The FACE Act, passed by Congress and signed by Democratic President Bill Clinton in 1994, makes it a federal crime to prevent access to and provision of reproductive services by force and threats.
This regulation was prompted by increased protests and attacks on clinics and healthcare workers in the 1980s and 1990s, culminating in the 1993 shooting death of physician David Gunn in Florida and the attempted of murder the same year of another physician, George Tiller, in Kansas by anti-abortion activists in both cases.
The Michigan events happened before the United States Supreme Court struck down federal abortion rights guarantees last June, so now each state has the power to ban it without risking its decision be overturned by the highest court in the land.
Michigan is one of the US states where access to abortion is protected: indeed, last November, Michigan voted in favor of an amendment to the State Constitution to protect access to this right.