This post originally appeared at https://www.prolifewi.org/blog/2021/7/15/the-face-act-freedom-of-access-to-clinic-entrance

THE FACE ACT: FREEDOM OF ACCESS TO CLINIC ENTRANCE

By Dan Miller, Pro-Life Wisconsin State Director

Ask any pro-lifer about The Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrance (FACE) Act and you will get myriad responses—from an eye roll, or fear, to downright anger—because the FACE Act made it a federal crime to block access (or entrance) to an abortion facility. It was President Bill Clinton’s response to the highly successful Rescue Movement.

Prior to the FACE Act, abortion centers were dropping like flies because of the massive numbers of people willing to participate in rescues to shut down an abortion center, even for a day. Oftentimes, these rescues led to arrest, but participants were willing to do whatever it took to save lives from abortion. In 1982, there were 29 abortion centers in Wisconsin, but thanks to the efforts of the Rescue Movement, by the time Pro-Life Wisconsin was founded in 1992, that count fell to 16.  Today there are four. 

One of the reasons the Rescue Movement was so successful in closing those abortion centers was simple dollars and cents.  The Rescue Movement’s goal was to focus on just one or two abortion centers in a month and put them out of business by coordinating rescues on their busiest abortion days.  And it worked.

In 1982 there were 19,412 abortions performed in those 29 Wisconsin abortion centers—56 abortions per center each month. Ten years later, with fewer abortion centers in the state, each abortion center was averaging 81 abortions per month, 15,549 annually. Now, nearly 30 years later, 6,511 babies are killed through abortion each year in Wisconsin. With just four abortion centers in the state, each center performs approximately 135 abortions each month.  Less access to abortion means fewer abortions.  It is that simple. 

As the numbers indicate, the Rescue Movement had much to do with reducing the number of abortion centers and annual abortion numbers. Despite the reduced number of centers and abortions, an abortion center’s odds of succeeding financially in today’s marketplace are much better than in 1992. Let’s do the math.

• In 1992, the 16 remaining abortion centers were each raking in over $583,000 a year.

• 87% of all abortions in Wisconsin now occur before twelve weeks gestation, with an average cost of $600. 

• With 6,511 abortions in Wisconsin, approximately 5,664 of those occur before twelve weeks gestation.

• Between Wisconsin’s four abortion centers, that’s 1,416 of these abortions, amounting to nearly $850,000 per center in profit—their greatest source of income.

Despite the Rescue Movement’s best efforts, abortions centers in Wisconsin and throughout the country are still raking in cash, profiting off the killing of innocent human beings. It is our duty now to carry on the torch of the many pro-life activists who have gone before us to end abortion and ensure that no one profits off the murder of preborn children. We thank God for those who have gone before us, saving so many thousands of babies from abortion through the Rescue Movement – a movement so successful that it took the federal government’s horrible enactment of the FACE Act to crush. But it will take more than this to silence the pro-life movement.

 We must end abortion and establish personhood for the preborn.

 Will you help us establish personhood and ensure that every preborn human being enjoys equal protection under the law? Our Wisconsin Personhood Amendment will do just that! Learn more at: ProLifeWI.org/personhood