A former Bowling Green State University student will be sentenced to two years probation and a $2,000 fine after confessing to vandalizing an Ohio pro-life nonprofit.
Whitney Durant, 20, also known as Soren Monroe, was sentenced at a hearing on Tuesday after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, according to WTVG.
Durant “intentionally damaged the property of HerChoice, a pregnancy center located in Bowling Green, Ohio, by defacing the clinic’s building, spray painting the words, ‘LIARS,’ ‘Fund Abortion,’ ‘Abort God,’ and ‘Jane’s Revenge'” on April 15, 2023, according to a news release from the Department of Justice.
“Durant was a Bowling Green State University student” at the time, according to the department. Durant was mentioned as a former student in a blog article published this week by Students for Life of America.
Morgan Reece, president of Bowling Green’s pro-life club Falcons for Life, said she is glad Durant was held accountable, but she wishes the punishment had been more than a “slap on the wrist.”
“The assistant U.S. prosecuting attorney told me and the Bowling Green Pregnancy Center’s executive director that Durant will not be getting jail time since this is only her first offense,” Reece said in a post on the Students for Life website.
Reece stated that pro-life advocates have gone to prison for “much less,” citing four recent convictions under the same law for “singing and praying outside abortion facilities.” They might face “six months in prison, five years of supervised release, and fines of up to $10,000,” according to Fox News.
Matt Kittle, a Federalist journalist, highlighted these unequal standards by referencing the instance of Hridindu Sankar Roychowdhury, who was convicted of firebombing the Wisconsin Family Action office in 2022 because of its pro-life attitude.
A federal judge sentenced Roychowdhury, a former University of Wisconsin researcher, to 90 months in prison on Wednesday, according to a Department of Justice news release.
Meanwhile, Kittle writes:
In late January, six pro-life demonstrators were convicted of violating the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act by blocking the entrance to an abortion facility in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee, in 2021. The FACE Act, signed into law by President Bill Clinton, criminalizes “violent, threatening, damaging, and obstructive conduct intended to injure, intimidate, or interfere with the right to seek, obtain, or provide” abortions.
For their peaceful rally, which included hymns and prayer, the defendants face a maximum penalty of more than a decade in jail and three years of supervised release, as well as up to $260,000 in fines.
Reece claimed that the FACE Act is being “weaponized” against pro-life advocates.
“How can a pro-abortion vandal face no prison time while pro-lifers face years of prison time for peacefully praying and singing?” she questioned in an email.