Four antiabortion extremists, Dennis Green, Paul Vaughn, Coleman Boyd and Cal Zastrow, were sentenced last week following their convictions for felony conspiracy and violation of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act. These charges stemmed from their involvement in a 2021 blockade of the carafem Health Center in Nashville, a reproductive health clinic that offered abortion care.
On March 5, 2021, the four defendants and the seven other indicted individuals blockaded the entrance to the Carafem Nashville Health Center. Patients were unable to enter the clinic, and staff members were unable to leave. In Coleman Boyd’s live stream of the blockade, he can be heard harassing and intimidating a patient, calling her a “mom coming to kill her baby.” Boyd also encouraged one of his children—a minor—to do the same. A patient and employee of the clinic testified at the trial, saying they felt fear and anxiety during the clinic blockade. Court documents described the blockade as “borne out of the defendant’s lack of respect for the law,” meant to “train and encourage others to carry out additional unlawful blockades.”