Mark Houck, a Pennsylvania man who became a pro-life hero after he was charged and acquitted of assaulting a 72-year-old Planned Parenthood volunteer, has lost his bid to represent his state’s 1st Congressional District.

In some ways, this is bad news for Democrats. The district, one of just 16 in the country that in 2020 voted for both Joe Biden and a Republican representative, will now be one in which a moderate Republican incumbent—Brian Fitzpatrick, the man who defeated Houck—fends off a Democratic challenger.

Had Houck won the primary against Fitzpatrick, Democrats would have been able, in the general election, to underscore the Republican candidate’s threat to reproductive rights (not to mention the 70-something volunteers who try to protect it).

Such a strategy would have been easy: Houck supports a full ban on abortion, with no exemptions for rape and incest. “When it comes to rape, incest, and life of the mother, you know, my faith informs me on some of that,” Houck said in August on the radio station 1210 WPHT. “The child doesn’t deserve the death penalty, and the reality of it is, we are further victimizing the mother. And so, once we start recognizing that, we’ll realize that rape and incest is not a good excuse to terminate a human being.”

That may make Houck seem like a fringe candidate, but he has powerful allies and has built a national profile off the 2021 incident that led to his criminal prosecution.

The backstory is this: For almost two decades, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer, Houck had driven two hours from his home to protest and pray the rosary outside a Planned Parenthood in Philadelphia, often remaining there for hours at a time. (The CEO of Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania alleged that........

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