by Steven T. McFarland

About the author: Steven T. McFarland is a lawyer and the director of the Christian Legal Society’s Center for Law and Religious Freedom in Annandale, Virginia.

With so many abortion-rights activists in the Clinton administration, it should be no surprise that the United States government has turned up the heat against the pro-life movement. The Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act of 1994 may force all but the most courageous to keep their pro-life opinions to themselves, raising serious questions about this administration’s regard for the First Amendment.

On the surface, FACE looks good. It is being sold as an effort to control the most outrageous acts committed in the name of the pro-life movement. Yet this plainly is not the act’s primary purpose, and it...