(LifeSiteNews) — Father David Nix, Father Fidelis Moscinski, Will Goodman, and another pro-life activist were found guilty of trespassing Friday for their efforts to save babies’ lives during a Red Rose Rescue at a New Jersey abortion center in 2019.
The judge imposed on all defendants a sentence of 18 months of probation, with the condition of no further arrests in New Jersey, and a minimum $158 fine. If a defendant violates probation, they will receive 30 days in jail.
BREAKING: Priests and pro-life activists found guilty for peacefully trying to save babies from abortion.
Sentenced to probation and fines for their 2019 Red Rose Rescue. @FrDaveNix @versoalto33 pic.twitter.com/GZtTg0sRFs
— LifeSiteNews (@LifeSite) March 14, 2025
On July 13, 2019, the priests and lay pro-life activists were arrested for entering and refusing to leave Garden State Gynecology, offering red roses to the women inside and encouraging them to choose life. At least one woman turned away and didn’t go through with an abortion, Red Rose Rescue spokeswoman Lisa Hart told LifeSiteNews at the time.
The red roses distributed inside the abortion center had attached to them a message that said: “You were made to love and to be loved…your goodness is greater than the difficulties of your situation. Circumstances in life change. A new life, however tiny, brings the promise of unrepeatable joy.”
One of Garden State Gynecology’s abortionists is Eric Yahav, who is alleged to have attempted to force his girlfriend to have an abortion in December 2015. The girlfriend obtained a court order of protection.
The police response was extraordinarily disproportionate to the activists’ peaceful efforts: About 10 SUVs showed up at the abortuary, and Fr. Fidelis was body-slammed to the ground by a cop, according to Fr. Nix.
“The Holy Spirit was with us. The 30 day suspended jail time was the best thing we can do,” commented attorney Vincent James Sanzone. “The judge gave us some leeway in presenting our arguments for life. It was an honor and privilege defending these pro-life saints.”
“We believe that the verdict was unjust. So we share in a very, very small way with the justice denied to the babies that are being killed in our land,” commented Goodman following the trial. Fr. Nix added that despite the verdict, they “successfully submitted a defense to save life.”
At Friday’s trial, Goodman, who is one of the “D.C. Nine” peaceful pro-life rescuers prosecuted by the Biden Department of Justice and thereafter pardoned by President Donald Trump, testified, “My intention was not to trespass, but to provide assistance and love to patients.”
For his part, Fr. Fidelis explained before the courtroom, “I went there to intervene in a life or death situation, because unborn children were in danger of being brutally murdered.
“It doesn’t require a specific religious belief to know that abortion is the deliberate killing of a human being,” added Fr. Fidelis, who was also among the pro-lifers pardoned by Trump, for a separate “lock and block” rescue.
Fr. Fidelis said the intent of the literature he brought to the abortuary was “to offer assistance,” since “Many times, abortion occurs when a mother feels it is her only option.” Thus, “there were names, numbers, places to go for help” listed in the pamphlets he gave to women at the abortuary. The roses he gave them, he said, are “a sign of love.”
“And what we were doing was an act of love,” Fr. Fidelis said at the witness stand.
Fr. Nix likewise affirmed during trial that he went to the abortion center that day “to save lives and offer help to patients,” comparing their presence that day to being near a “No Trespassing sign” before a pool with a drowning child in it, “where the lifeguards are distracted.”
“I would walk past the sign and save the child,” said Fr. Nix. He previously explained to LifeSiteNews that their legal approach for this trial would be one of “necessity,” since human lives were in danger at the abortuary.
Goodman yesterday told former Trump adviser Steve Bannon that he and his co-defendants were founding their defense in part on the Dobbs v. Jackson Supreme Court decision, which acknowledged “that there is in fact a human being in the womb.” Therefore, the unborn baby is “a person worthy of our protection,” said Goodman.
The judge was unsympathetic and even combative, according to an observer present at the trial, who said the defendants “could hardly get a word in, much less finish a sentence” during summations.
Fr. Nix previously explained to LifeSiteNews that this trial was delayed for several reasons, including the COVID outbreak, and the fact that Goodman was incarcerated for other pro-life rescue efforts.
Red Rose Rescues are inspired by Canadian activist Mary Wagner and are somewhat of a revival of a tactic used during the dawn of the post–Roe v. Wade pro-life movement. Pro-lifers frequently chained themselves to abortion equipment and blocked entrances to abortion centers, saving many babies. Former president Bill Clinton’s signing into law the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act allowed for much stricter punishment of those who block abortion center entryways, forcing the pro-life movement to change methods.
“Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta said that her work was ‘to go into the dark holes of the poor,’” Hart has told LifeSiteNews. “The Red Rose Rescue is an action of going into the dark holes of the poor — namely, abortion clinics where the innocent are rejected — and in these dark holes we seek to bring hope, true peace, and the presence of God.”
