(The Conversation) — Soon after taking office for a second time, President Donald Trump pardoned anti-abortion activists who had blockaded and restricted access to the entrance of a reproductive health clinic in Washington, D.C., in October 2020. These protesters were convicted of violating the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act. Protesting outside clinics is a way for conservative anti-abortion activists to directly influence access to reproductive health care. The FACE Act prohibits the use of force or threat toward people trying to obtain or provide reproductive health services. It was created to limit the anti-abortion movement’s tactics outside clinics, requiring that protesters cannot physically stop patients from walking into clinics and receiving care. But demonstrations outside of clinics are still common. My own research has shown the effectiveness of the anti-abortion movement in influencing the landscape and language of reproductive health care and politics in the U.S. through actions such as protests outside clinics. In Trump’s second term, the Justice Department has said that it will not prosecute demonstrators unless there are “extraordinary …