Quote:At the end of last week, likely hoping his actions would go unnoticed, Trump pardoned 23 anti-abortion activists who were convicted for not only illegally barricading abortion clinics, but in some cases, violently attacking patients and clinic staff, as well as stealing aborted embryos and fetal tissue. In a statement shared with Jezebel, Center for Reproductive Rights President Nancy Northrup called the pardons a “get-out-of-jail-free card inviting anti-abortion extremists to step up their attacks on reproductive health clinics with impunity.”

Quote:At the same time that Trump issued these pardons, his Department of Justice announced it would now limit enforcement of the FACE Act (Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances), a law that was enacted in the 1990s to prohibit anti-abortion protesters from blocking entry to abortion clinics. The law was signed by former President Bill Clinton in 1994 in response to years of extreme violence and obstruction from protesters, including the murder of Dr. David Gunn in 1993.

According to the new directive from the attorney general’s office, prosecutors are only to enforce the FACE Act in “extraordinary circumstances,” such as in incidents involving death, extreme bodily harm, or significant property damage, CBS News reports. So, short of health providers being killed or almost killed, or their clinics razed to the ground, the federal government now seems to advise that prosecutors look the other way; frankly, even if providers are killed or their clinics subjected to arson down the line, who’s to say the Trump administration won’t come up with some reason to insist no action be taken?  As Slate put it, Trump has effectively declared “open season” on abortion providers.