US President Donald Trump has pardoned 23 anti-abortion activists, including some convicted of blockading a reproductive health clinic and intimidating staff and patients.
The pardons were part of a round of executive orders signed by Trump on Thursday, one of several in the first week of his presidency.
Trump described the convictions as “ridiculous”, but abortion rights campaigners said the move was evidence of his opposition to abortion access.
The orders came a day before anti-abortion protesters were due to come to Washington DC for the annual March for Life, which the president is due to address by videolink.
In 2020, Trump became the first sitting president to attend the rally in person, though George W Bush and Ronald Reagan have also addressed it remotely.
Vice President J D Vance will attend in person this time.
The rally has been held in the US capital every year since 1974, a year after abortion was legalised by the Supreme Court in Roe v Wade.
Abortion rights have been a key issue in recent presidential races and the court overturned the ruling in 2022.
Signing the pardons, Trump said of the activists: “They should not have been prosecuted. Many of them are elderly people… This is a great honour to sign this. They’ll be very happy.”
US media report that one of those pardoned is Lauren Handy, leader of the group Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising (PAAU).
The group was convicted of conspiring in 2020 to storm a Washington reproductive health clinic and block access to intimidate patients and staff. Members forced their way into the Surgi-Clinic, injuring a nurse, and spent several hours inside.
Handy was found guilty in August 2023 and sentenced in May 2024.
Her supporters have hailed the pardons, saying that the convictions were political.
The president of Susan B Anthony Pro-Life America, Marjorie Dannenfelser, said the protesters were targeted by Joe Biden’s Department of Justice and she thanked Trump for “immediately delivering on his promise” to pardon them.
But abortion rights activists said the pardons confirmed their belief that Trump was anti-abortion, despite him declaring during his presidential campaign that it was up to individual states to decide whether to allow the practice.
Ryan Stitzlein of the national abortion rights organisation Reproductive Freedom for All told AP news agency: “Donald Trump on the campaign trail tried to have it both ways – bragging about his role in overturning Roe v Wade while saying he wasn’t going to take action on abortion.
“We never believed that that was true, and this shows us that we were right.”
