Two pro-life activists were sentenced to several years in prison Tuesday on charges of conspiracy against rights and violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE Act) stemming from a 2020 \u2018rescue action\u2019 at a Washington, D.C.-based abortion clinic.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Lauren Handy, 30, was sentenced to four years and nine months in prison for organizing the protest, while co-defendant John Hinshaw, 69, was sentenced to a year and nine months. Handy and Hinslaw, along with seven others convicted on the same charges, blocked access to the Washington Surgi-Clinic on Oct. 22, 2020 while chaining themselves to furniture inside the clinic, according to the indictment.<\/p>\n
The hourslong protest was livestreamed on one of the protester\u2019s Facebook accounts.<\/p>\n
\u2018Our \u2018crime\u2019 was \u2018attempting to stop the slaughter of late-term babies in the Santangelo abortion mill in Washington, D.C.,\u201d Hinslaw said in a statement obtained by Fox News Digital. \u2018Additionally, the importance of these sentences cannot be overstated, since never before has \u2018peaceful civil disobedience\u2019 faced such legal violence as our federal law enforcement is now practicing!\u2019<\/p>\n
During the jury trial last year, Handy and another co-defendant, Herb Geraghty, referenced pro-life organization Live Action\u2019s \u2018Inhuman: Undercover in America\u2019s Late-Term Abortion Industry\u2019 video as influencing their decision to participate in the blockade.<\/p>\n
One part of the video, released a decade ago, shows Santangelo telling an undercover woman if she went into labor and delivered before the \u2018termination part of the procedure\u2019 was carried out, \u2018then we would not help it.\u2019<\/p>\n
Following the indictment, remains of apparently aborted unborn babies were found in Handy\u2019s Washington home, prosecutors said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
According to the October 2022 indictment, using a fabricated identity, Handy secured an appointment at the clinic, and as a clinic staff member opened the door, pro-life activists emerged from the building\u2019s emergency stairwell and invaded the facility. The incident resulted in an altercation that led to a clinic employee being hospitalized for an ankle injury, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors argued the pro-life activists violated the 1994 FACE Act, a federal law that prohibits physical force, threats of force, or intentionally damaging property to prevent someone from obtaining or providing abortion services.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Defense lawyers asked for a prison sentence of one year for Handy, who has been jailed since her August 2023 conviction.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly read the \u2018shocking\u2019 sentence, it was \u2018a bit surreal,\u2019 said Steve Crampton, senior counsel at the Thomas Moore Society in a Fox News Digital interview Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u2018This is not the America I know,\u2019 said Crampton, who represented Handy in the case. \u2018Not only did the judge read out this really harsh sentence, but she had the audacity to lecture Lauren Handy about her lack of compassion for the women who were going in to kill their children.\u2019<\/p>\n
Crampton compared the pro-life activists\u2019 demonstration to that of the current anti-Israel demonstrations that have been occurring on college campuses for weeks.<\/p>\n
\u2018The contrast here with the Pro-Palestine folks shutting down the colleges and even preventing graduation ceremonies, and blocking entire highways and interstates in addition to the ongoing attacks\u2026 yet there are virtually no ongoing investigations. I think there\u2019s kind of a palpable sense of selective prosecution elements that can\u2019t be ignored here.\u2019<\/p>\n
The judge told Handy that she was being punished for her actions, not her beliefs.<\/p>\n
\u2018The law does not protect violent nor obstructive conduct, nor should it,\u2019 Kollar-Kotelly said.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors recommended a prison sentence of roughly six years for Handy. They described her as an anti-abortion extremist who was a \u2018criminal mastermind\u2019 behind the Washington invasion and similar attacks on other clinics.<\/p>\n
\u2018Her strongly held anti-abortion beliefs led her to devise a plan to block access to the Surgi-clinic,\u2019 prosecutors wrote. \u2018The blockade, which was broadcast to Handy\u2019s legion of followers, encouraged others to commit similar crimes, publicized her own offense, and traumatized the victims.\u2019<\/p>\n
The Associated Press contributed to this report.<\/p>\n\n
Two pro-life activists were sentenced to several years in prison Tuesday on charges of conspiracy against rights and violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE Act) stemming from a 2020 \u2018rescue action\u2019 at a Washington, D.C.-based abortion clinic.\u00a0 Lauren Handy, 30, was sentenced to four years and nine months in prison for <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":19158,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-19157","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19157\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}