Ten pro-lifers are spending Christmas in prison this year after being convicted for praying outside abortion clinics and trying to persuade abortion-minded women to save their babies.
While the advocates for unborn life look forward to freedom, many seek to use their incarceration to share the hope they hold and the true meaning of Christmas with fellow prisoners.
Since 2021, the Biden-Harris administration’s Justice Department has brought criminal or civil cases under the Freedom of Clinic Access, or FACE Act, against at least 50 pro-life advocates.
President Joe Biden’s critics have accused him and his DOJ of weaponizing the FACE Act against pro-lifers while failing to charge pro-abortion criminals for the hundreds of attacks on pregnancy resource centers since the May 2022 leak of the draft Supreme Court opinion indicating Roe would soon be overturned.
The Daily Signal was able to communicate with several incarcerated pro-lifer by sending questions through the prison messaging system.
Jonathan Darnell, 41, was sentenced to 34 months in prison in Thompson, Illinois, after being charged with charged with a felony conspiracy against rights and a FACE Act offense.
This is his second Christmas in jail.
He told The Daily Signal this Christmas will be difficult because his mother was recently placed in a nursing home for her dementia. Yet his hope in his Savior remains strong.
“I was an adult before I began to appreciate that Christmas was not just a prelude to Easter (i.e. the incarnation was not merely a prelude to the cross),” he said. “It means that God is fulfilling His promise of setting things right on earth, crushing the serpent’s head, and bringing the whole world back under His Lordship.”
“The more I can contemplate that,” he continued, “the less I think of my personal problems and the more the future seems bright and full of hope.”
Prior to going to jail, he would spend Christmas with family and friends, and attend a potluck at his church in Virginia. In the days before and after Christmas, he and his fellow church members would do evangelism outings in Washington, D.C.
This year, he hopes to meet his fellow incarcerated pro-lifer, Calvin Zastrow, to sing Christmas carols.
“What we lack in outward expressions of faith,” he said, “we’ll make up for with inward contemplation.”
He will preach about the prophecies made by Mary, Zechariah, and Simeon during the Nativity at the prison’s Spanish Bible study on Sunday.
Darnell celebrates that he has had several new opportunities to discuss his faith in Jesus Christ with other prisoners: “Sometimes I bring the subject up and other times Jesus just drops them into my lap! It’s wonderful!”
John Hinshaw, 69, is in a low-security prison in Ayer, Massachusetts, after being convicted for violating the FACE Act in November 2023. He was sentenced to 24 months in jail.
Christmas this year will be difficult, he said, as his youngest daughter, Bernadette, could give birth any day.
Hinshaw is married with six children and four grandchildren.
He was also incarcerated last Christmas, which was his first Christmas away from his family. His oldest daughter, MaryKate, delivered a granddaughter on Dec. 9, 2023, who he has not met yet.
“My children are the greatest things that have ever happened to me. My wife is the softest woman I have ever met,” he told The Daily Signal. “These are the people I have chosen to spend the most time with since my wedding in 1987.”
He said........