Posted on 05/14/2024 10:56:11 AM PDT by Morgana
Pro-life activist Lauren Handy was sentenced to four years and nine months in prison in a Washington, D.C., district court today for her role in organizing a “rescue” at a local abortion clinic.
Attorneys from the Thomas More Society who are representing Handy said they will appeal her conviction.
This comes nearly nine months after Handy and eight other pro-life activists were convicted on felony charges of conspiracy against rights and violation of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act for their involvement in an October 2020 rescue at the Washington Surgi-Clinic run by Dr. Cesare Santangelo. Handy was immediately incarcerated and has been in prison since her conviction.
The sentencing was ordered by U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, who chided Handy for prioritizing her activism above the “needs” of women, according to local news outlet WUSA9.
“Neither you nor any of the other co-conspirators showed any compassion, empathy, toward those two women needing medical care,” Kollar-Kotelly said. “Your views took precedence over, frankly, their human needs.”
According to a previous DOJ statement, the activists involved in the rescue used “physical obstruction to injure, intimidate, and interfere with the clinic’s employees and a patient because they were providing or obtaining reproductive health services.”
The DOJ also said the activists “forcefully entered the clinic and set about blockading two clinic doors using their bodies, furniture, chains, and ropes.”
Handy, 30, is best known as one of the activists who in 2022 discovered the remains of five late-term aborted babies, known as “the D.C. five,” outside the Washington Surgi-Clinic.
Handy’s group, the Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising (PAAU), claims that some of these babies bore signs that they were killed in partial-birth abortions, which is illegal under federal law. Despite requests by multiple members of Congress, the office of the D.C. medical examiner has refused to allow any independent investigation into the babies’ deaths.
Steve Crampton, an attorney with the Thomas More Society, responded to the ruling by saying that “Ms. Handy’s 57-month sentence is a miscarriage of justice, plain and simple.”
“As I’ve gotten to know Ms. Handy, I’ve seen up close her unwavering passion for pro-life advocacy and resolute dedication to nonviolence,” he went on. “But this fight is far from over, and we eagerly look forward to appealing for Ms. Handy and her co-defendants’ freedom, so that the FACE Act can never again be weaponized by the Department of Justice against its ideological opponents.”
In a statement released shortly before her sentencing, Handy said: “I am at peace with myself and my future. I will go into court with my head held high and heart open.”
“Yes, this time has been challenging, but I refuse to be jaded. Why? Because life goes on... even in jail,” she said. “So I might as well continue to love and cry and scream and dance. That is joy. The feeling of being fully alive without shame. Which is something no court can take from me.”
The eight other activists — John Hinshaw, William Goodman, Herb Geraghty, Jonathan Darnel, Jean Marshall, Joan Bell, Heather Idoni, and Paulette Harlow — are set to receive their sentences over the next few days.
Signed by President Bill Clinton in 1994, the FACE Act prohibits obstructing access to or destruction of abortion clinics, pregnancy centers, or church property. The law has been criticized by several lawmakers for being unevenly applied against pro-lifers.
I pray Trump wins and grants her a pardon
More lawfare.
Roe was overturned. How does a “civil rights” federal law criminalize protests against something that is not a recognized civil right?
Call Congress
(202) 224-3121
U.S. House switchboard operator
Mention state and zip to get connected.
Message: America’s existential threat is the absence of consequences for abortion advocates committing hate crimes against pro-lifers. We need to establish by law that abortion advocates are committing hate crimes against abortion opponents based on gender identity, religion, religious practice,or religious orientation, in most cases.
REFERENCE A hate crime is a criminal act that targets a victim based on the victim’s actual or perceived race, color, national origin, ancestry, gender, gender identity or expression, religion, religious practice, age, disability or sexual orientation.
You can report a hate crime to the FBI online at: tips.FBI.gov.
Follow the instructions on the pop-ups and fill out the online form to report a hate crime.
By Phone: Call the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI (1-800-225-5324).
You can also reach out to your local FBI field office. Find the phone number for the FBI field office closest to you at www.fbi.gov/contact-us/field-offices.
The FBI may reach out to you for more information as they investigate.
According to the judge’s wikipedia page she got her Juris Doctor from Catholic University of America.
thedailysignal.com-——Biden appointee, Kristen Clarke, assistant attorney general for civil rights at the Department of Justice, is a vocal abortion proponent who has repeatedly expressed her support for preserving Roe v. Wade. She also oversees investigations into violations of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act—which she has used to charge 26 pro-life individuals this year.
“It appears she’s violating her oath of office and she’s violating her duty, which is to fairly administer the law regardless of political views,” John Daukas, former acting assistant attorney general for civil rights in the Trump administration, told The Daily Signal. “She appears only to be prosecuting groups that she doesn’t like, doesn’t agree with.”
Few would expect such a high-ranking DOJ official to retain the slew of political hot-takes and public condemnations that litter Clarke’s social media from before she assumed her current role. She has called Alliance Defending Freedom a “hate group” and Liberty University a “fundamentalist Christian school.” She has said that those protesting Dr. Anthony Fauci should be “publicly identified and named, barred from treatment at any public hospital if/when they fall ill and denied coverage under their insurance.”
She has hurled insults at Republican politicians from Lisa Murkowski to Donald Trump, supported the allegations of Christine Blasey Ford, and has submitted testimony to the U.S. Senate that Amy Coney Barrett was unfit to serve as a justice because she would likely rule to overturn Roe v. Wade (which Clarke vociferously and publicly supported). She has frequently critiqued pro-life laws and courts that upheld them, branding a law protecting Down Syndrome babies “draconian.”
Significantly (in light of the scores of recent attacks on pro-life centers following the Roe v. Wade leak), Clarke called pro-life pregnancy care centers “predatory” and “fake clinics,” claiming they are part of a “coordinated strategy to tear down Roe” (as The Washington Free Beacon’s Chuck Ross reported).
Clarke has heavily toned down her activist rhetoric since her nomination to the Justice Department. The Daily Signal reached out to her multiple times through various avenues to obtain comment for this story, but a spokesperson declined to comment on her behalf.
Her politically charged comments call into question “her ability to impartially enforce the law,” according to Roger Severino, the former director of the health department’s Office for Civil Rights who also formerly served as a trial attorney in the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division.
snip
Unbelievable.
Remember these people are possessed by a demon called Molech. They are really going to go nuts now that they can't kill babies for him
“ Unbelievable”
Not in fascist America.
Satan runs amok in this country.
yes the list will be very long and justified
I want to hear that explanation as well. Does Congress have the power to make protesting against any business engaged in interstate commerce a federal felony? If I stage a sit-in at my local Coca-Cola bottler to publicize my belief that sugared sodas make people fat, could Congress pass a law to put me in Federal prison?
No doubt. Did you hear Harrison Butker’s commencement address, the part where he talked about Catholics today?
I had not heard of him or his commencement address until you mentioned it an then I found it (Benedictine College 2024?) and watched it. thanks for the tip.
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