Twenty armed federal agents raided the Pennsylvania home of pro-life father Mark Houck.
The federal FACE Act was the weapon, and California has a FACE Act of its own.
This time the target was a woman armed with pamphlets, sidewalk chalk and a 14-second Instagram reel.
Pro-Life Sidewalk Counselor Anastasia Rogers Arrested on Bush Street
On December 18, 2025, Anastasia Rogers was standing on the public sidewalk outside the Planned Parenthood at 1522 Bush Street in San Francisco.
She was handing out leaflets with the Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust team, a pro-life group whose volunteers offer women another way at the clinic door.
Those leaflets carried phone numbers for women who want to try abortion pill reversal and for women who need counseling after an abortion.
Then she was arrested.
"There's no intent to intimidate ever – we're never intimidating people, we're trying to help people," Rogers said.
Prosecutors charged her under California's Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, a state law aimed at force, threats and physical obstruction at abortion facilities.
Rogers had used none of those.
She still faced up to two years in prison, and a protective order restricted how she could reach women on the sidewalk while the case dragged on.
Her Survivors teammates put it bluntly – she was being punished "for simply being pro life in a city and state that loves child sacrifice."
Rogers' response after hours in custody tells you who she is.
"If Planned Parenthood thinks that throwing me in jail for 7 hours or 7 days is going to stop me from loving my neighbor – the preborn child – they're wrong," she said.
Brooke Jenkins Failed to Win a California FACE Act Conviction Over an Instagram Reel
The whole case rested on one short clip.
The reel followed a popular online format where someone reaches out for a friendly handshake before the video cuts to a punchline.
Her captions read "Unalive them with kindness" and then "Unalive them" over an image of a clinic escort – a riff on the old saying "kill them with kindness."
San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins' office called that intimidation.
But according to National Review, the escort "did not feel threatened or intimidated on the day that the video occurred."
Jenkins pushed ahead anyway.
The trial lasted nearly two weeks.
Ten jurors voted to acquit Rogers on one count, and nine voted to acquit on the other.
This was a San Francisco jury, in one of the most pro-abortion cities in America, and the DA still couldn't win.
The judge declared a mistrial, and Jenkins' office set the case for a second trial.
Only then did prosecutors blink.
They agreed to a three-month diversion deal that required no admission of guilt – Rogers took down the video and agreed to keep her distance from that one escort.
Now the charges are dismissed and the protective order is gone.
"California took me to trial, and they couldn't convict me," Rogers wrote. "They even wanted to try again but God had other plans. It's over. We beat the FACE Act. Remember that God is faithful."
Then she asked her supporters to "pray for the women who walk through those doors."
Prayer, not revenge.
Alexandra Snyder of Life Legal Defense Foundation, which represented Rogers, said she "should never have been dragged through a criminal trial for peaceful pro-life advocacy."
Rob Bonta Is Suing Heartbeat International Over Abortion Pill Reversal
Rogers' case isn't the only front in California's war on sidewalk compassion.
Attorney General Rob Bonta is suing Heartbeat International and RealOptions for promoting abortion pill reversal – the same kind of help Rogers was handing out on Bush Street.
Bonta wants about $20 million in penalties, and the trial opened on June 24, 2026 – the anniversary of the Dobbs decision.
That's California's message to a scared woman who took the first abortion pill and changed her mind – don't call for help.
Trump's Justice Department Stands With Peaceful Pro-Life Protesters
Washington has turned in the opposite direction.
Under President Trump, the Justice Department's top civil rights lawyer, Harmeet Dhillon, has said the department will not target peaceful pro-life protesters, explaining, "We believe in the First Amendment."
Mark Houck's jury acquitted him in about an hour, and in April 2026 the federal government agreed to pay him more than $1 million to settle his lawsuit over that 2022 raid.
The Supreme Court has already ruled for sidewalk counselors, striking down a Massachusetts buffer zone unanimously in McCullen v. Coakley in 2014.
Brooke Jenkins and Rob Bonta haven't gotten the message.
Anastasia Rogers is back on Bush Street with her leaflets, praying for the babies.
Sources:
- Steven Ertelt, "Charges Against Pro-Life Woman Dropped for Making Video Outside Planned Parenthood," LifeNews, October 2, 2026.
- Michael J. New, "Bay Area Pro-Life Activist Wins Legal Victory," National Review, June 30, 2026.
- Greg Piper, "Calif. Stops Prosecuting Pro-Lifer, Still Tries to Cripple Groups Promoting Abortion 'Reversal,'" Just the News, June 29, 2026.
- Kate Quiñones, "Catholic Father Whose Home Was Raided at Gunpoint Wins 7-Figure Settlement From U.S. Government," EWTN News, April 14, 2026.
- Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell, "How Trump's DOJ Plans to Use Law Weaponized Against Pro-Lifers to Protect Them Instead," The Daily Signal, June 19, 2025.
- U.S. Supreme Court, "McCullen v. Coakley," U.S. Supreme Court, June 26, 2014.
