The ‘Garland 9’ Pro-Life Rescuers are threatened with 11-year prison sentences, an additional three years of supervised watch and $350,000 in fines each because they tried to save babies from abortion.
SIGN: Tell Merrick Garland to stop the DOJ's persecution of pro-life activists. Save the Garland 9!
Nine pro-lifers who were unjustly arrested in October 2020 at the notorious Washington Surgi-Clinic are facing over a decade each in jail.
Nicknamed the ‘Garland 9’ after President Biden’s notorious Attorney General, Merrick Garland, the rescuers are being treated like criminals for simply trying to save lives.
So far the conditions of their indictment, the judge's comments and a prejudicial jury selection seem to indicate the nine are going to be made examples of in a show trial that started August 6th, 2023.
One of the pro-life defendants, Lauren Handy, said: “Media reports have stated that we ‘invaded’ the abortion center and ‘disrupted’ women from exercising their ‘reproductive rights.’ No, that is not what we did. We entered the clinic and sought to love the women already there for their abortion procedures. We tried to offer them help so they would choose life. We non-violently defended the unborn who were about to be exterminated – the innocent, the most vulnerable, killed in horrific acts of violence and treated as so much trash.”
SIGN: Merrick Garland must stop the DOJ's persecution of pro-life activists
Joe Biden’s rogue Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Gestapo-esque FBI have raided and arrested the legendary Joan Andrews Bell and eight other pro-lifers (Lauren Handy, 28; Jonathan Darnel, 40; Jay Smith, 32; Paulette Harlow, 73; Jean Marshall, 72; John Hinshaw, 67; Heather Idoni, 57; and William Goodman, 52) charging them with “conspiracy against rights” and “FACE Act” offenses after they tried to rescue babies from death at the prominent D.C. late-term abortion mill, Washing-Surgi Clinic.
"This unprecedented attack on rescuers by the federal government, including terrorizing raids and potentially draconian prison sentences, has not been seen in this country since the enforcement of the immoral Fugitive Slave Act,” Handy said.
A federal Grand Jury handed down the indictment, including Federal Civil Rights Conspiracy charges.
This is the latest in a wave of state-sponsored persecution of pro-life activists. If these loving counsellors can be apphedended as felons, so too might parents be at school board meetings, as well as other peaceful protesters, and those who support life, family, faith, and freedom.
Among other violations of their human rights and the bypassing of jurisprudence, the Garland 9 are prohibited from mentioning the word ''abortion'' during the trial, denied the right to provided character witnesses and expert witnesses, and cannot even address this misapplication of the law during their trial.
If we ignore the battle of the Garland 9, other ordinary people will also be labelled criminal conspiracists by corrupt law enforcement and the courts. If we do not succeed in fighting these dangerous precedents now, we may not have many future opportunities left to fight at all.
SIGN: Tell Merrick Garland to stop the DOJ's persecution of pro-life activists
Handy also stated: “Sadly, this arm of the government under the current administration is being used as a weapon against the ‘most vulnerable members of our society’ — the pre-born babies.”
Since the 1994 passing of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, the law has ignored virtually all attacks on churches and pro-life facilities to focus solely on presumed attacks on abortion facilities and personnel.
Recently, while disregarding other serious incidents against conservatives, the DOJ has used the law as a Stasi-like hammer since the overturning of Roe vs. Wade to target pro-lifers.
SIGN: Help stop the DOJ from using the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act to silence Pro-Life advocates, while ignoring pro-abortion terrorism
Why are loyal law-abiding American Catholics being surveilled at church by the FBI? The Biden regime is undemocratically cracking down on its political and ideological opponents and violating their rights.
Another defendant, Will Goodman, told LifeSite: “Peaceful pro-lifers committed to non-violent direct action in the American tradition of civil disobedience are being treated like ‘enemies of the state’ and are being refused any legal opportunities to advocate for the constitutional civil rights of the preborn humans in the womb.”
Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta recently said that overturning Roe (Dobbs) made it more ''urgent'' to target pro-lifers, remarks that conservatives are taking as an admission that the DOJ has been intentionally targeting pro-lifers instead of impartially upholding the law.
Gupta listed among new and “insidious” challenges to “civil and constitutional rights” the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade.
SIGN: Tell Merrick Garland to stop the DOJ's persecution of pro-life activists. Save the Garland 9!
Arrested veteran Pro-Life Rescuer Lauren Handy (28), who organized the rescue, told LifeSiteNews at the time that “we are no longer having a debate with evil but confronting it head on — today we are using our bodies as shields to protect our pre-born siblings from abortion.”
The Biden administration is by-passing local law enforcement, State’s rights and misusing the Federal Courts and FBI to make all pro-life activity effectively illegal.
Dr. Monica Miller, the director of Citizens for a Pro-Life Society and leader of Red Rose Rescue, told LifeSiteNews that “as a consequence, warrants were immediately issued, and eight of the nine pro-lifers were rounded up in an FBI raid of their homes and places of work.” Miller noted that “this is the first time any of them face federal charges. That FBI agents hunted down the rescuers is unprecedented in the history of pro-life activism.”
SIGN: Tell Merrick Garland to stop the DOJ's persecution of pro-life activists
The FACE Act (18 U.S.C. § 248(a)(3)) prohibits “violent, threatening, damaging, and obstructive conduct intended to injure, intimidate, or interfere with the right to seek, obtain, or provide reproductive health services.” It also is supposed to protect places of worship and facilities where reproductive health is not a euphamism for murder, but it does not.
The law has never been evenly applied, and is predicated on the lie that the Pro-Life movement is inherently violent, while ignoring actual increasing violence against places of worship and pro-life pregnancy help centers.
Thomas More Society senior trial counsel Martin A. Cannon told The Epoch Times that while the FACE Act violation “under the circumstances charged is a misdemeanor,” the conspiracy charge, if proven, “is a felony.”
According to Cannon, that’s “a lot of overcharging.”
“There’s another federal conspiracy statute they could have charged under that makes the conspiracy no worse than the underlying charge,” he said. “But if you’re pro-lifers, you don’t get that kind of prosecutorial consideration all the time. They just dogpile on you when they can.”
SIGN: Tell Merrick Garland to stop the DOJ's persecution of pro-life activists - Help save your nation from tyranny and persecution
This vaguely worded FACE Act, which many legal experts regard as unconstitutional, was also weaponized to falsely, viciously, and unjustly arrest Mark Houck at his home.
Houck, who has since been vindicated, was threatened with the exact same draconian punishments of the Garland 9, having been apprehended by the FBI at his home in a manner that terrorized, his wife, seven children, and other pro-lifers.
No less than 25 FBI officers were present to arrest Houck, despite an offer by Houck to turn himself in. This is just another example of this police-state abuse, and why it needs to end now!
SIGN: Tell Merrick Garland to stop the DOJ's persecution of pro-life activists
This weaponization of our courts and the FBI requires Congressional oversight (or the defunding and disbanding of this rogue law-enforcement agency) to bring these abuses to a halt. There needs to be checks on an administration that, operating like a banana republic, seeks to criminalize its opposition.
Beyond the attack on the pro-life activists, these unjust legal measures ignore the rights of the preborn, the coercive nature of the eugenic abortion industry, and they further restrict merciful and charitable options that can help so many in need.
The so-called "clinic” which the the Garland 9 were accused of blocking was notorious for performing late-term abortions - a brutal form of murder visited on the innocent.
These are not medical procedures, but inhuman, cruel perversions of the law. The false narratives around a mythical rise in violent anti-abortionists obscures the reality of the murder the Biden administration is covering up.
SIGN: Tell Merrick Garland to stop the DOJ's persecution of pro-life activists
Our society needs pregnancy resource centers to help protect women and their babies. President John Adams had warned us that our Republic necessitates a religious and moral citizenry. When the state threatens draconian prison sentences, crippling fines, and surveillance for good-willed, ethical people seeking to help their neighbors, it is time to push back.
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MORE INFORMATION:
Potential jurors in DC trial of pro-lifers admit to being Planned Parenthood donors, abortion activists - LifeSiteNews
