A 20-year-old Ohio woman has pleaded guilty to vandalizing an Ohio pregnancy resource center in April.
Whitney M. Durant, who also goes by the alias Soren Monroe and allegedly identifies as nonbinary or transgender, admitted to vandalizing the HerChoice Medical PRC in Bowling Green. At the time of the incident, she was reportedly a member of both the Bowling Green Student Rights Union and BGSocialists. The vandalism included spray-painted statements that read, “LIARS,” “Fund Abortion,” “Abort God,” and “Jane’s Revenge.”
Durant pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge filed under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act.
“Defacing facilities that provide reproductive health services will not be tolerated in our society,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division in a press release. “The Justice Department is committed to enforcing the FACE Act to protect all patients who seek reproductive health services and all persons and facilities that provide such services.”
“The First Amendment provides a constitutional right to peacefully protest, but Ms. Durant’s actions of defacing a reproductive health care center crossed a line,” added Special Agent in Charge Greg Nelsen of the FBI Cleveland Field Office. “The FBI and our partners will continue to aggressively investigate FACE Act violations and protect every American’s access to reproductive health care services.”
While the FACE Act has been used in several instances like this one, to protect pregnancy resource centers, it is used far more often to protect abortion facilities — even though PRCs have been subjected to dozens of instances of violence and vandalism over the past two years. The recent trials of nine pro-lifers in Washington, D.C., have demonstrated the lack of even-handedness shown by the courts toward pro-life individuals who committed no violence or vandalism, but peacefully entered an abortion facility seeking to stop women from killing their preborn children. Those pro-lifers, some of whom are elderly, face up to 11 years in prison on FACE Act and conspiracy charges.
In contrast, in Wisconsin, Hridindu Roychowdhury, who firebombed a pro-life office, “faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, but prosecutors agreed to recommend that Judge Conley reduce the sentence because he has accepted responsibility for the crime. A sentencing hearing was scheduled for Feb. 14,” according to the Associated Press (emphasis added).
In November 2022, FBI Director Christopher Wray admitted that about 70% of abortion-related violence and threats since the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization have been perpetrated against pro-life groups. Despite this, the DOJ has repeatedly targeted pro-lifers with misleading claims that they are responsible for “extremely dangerous behavior.”
At the time of the April incident, HerChoice released a statement. “Our desire is for Bowling Green to be a peaceful community where diverse ideas can be communicated in respectful, non-violent ways,” they said. “HerChoice has been and will continue to be a place where women can turn to know their options and to know that they are not alone when facing a pregnancy decision.”
Durant faces a maximum of one year in prison. A sentencing hearing will be scheduled for April 9, 2024.
