BREAKING: Pro-abortion judge sentences Lauren Handy to 4 years in prison, Will Goodman to 18 months, John Hinshaw to one year Joan Andrew Bell to 18 months, Rosemary “Herb” Geraghty to 18 months, Jonathan Darnel to 25 months and Jean Marshall to 15 months.
Pro-life advocate Lauren Handy was sentenced to four years in prison and handed a $125 fine on Tuesday, in the first of Tuesday’s sentencing hearings for the first batch of pro-lifers convicted last year of blocking access to a late-term abortion facility in the nation’s capital.
John Hinshaw was then sentenced to 21 months in prison and a $125 fine in the second of Tuesday’s sentencing - Hinshaw will effectively serve 12 months, as he has already spent nine in prison.
Will Goodman was later sentenced to 27 months in prison and a $125 fine in the third of the day’s sentencing hearings - Goodman has already spent nine months in prison, meaning he has 18 more to serve.
On August 29, 2023 a D.C. jury found Handy, Will Goodman, Heather Idoni, John Hinshaw, and Herb Geraghty guilty of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act and conspiracy against rights. The next month, Joan Andrews Bell, Jonathan Darnel, and Jean Marshall were convicted of the same; Paulette Harlow’s conviction came in November.
Tuesday’s hearings, before U.S. District Judge for the District of Columbia Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, began with Handy, the activism director of Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising (PAAU), starting at 9:00 AM.
As LifeSiteNews has extensively reported, the pro-lifers stood trial for blocking access to the Washington Surgi-Clinic in downtown Washington D.C., in a “traditional rescue” in October 2020.
Pro-life “rescues”, of which there were many in the early days of the pro-life movement before the FACE Act became federal law, involve physically entering abortion centers and refusing to leave in an effort to convince women to choose life for their babies (Washington Surgi-Clinic is also where five late-term aborted babies were discovered that may have either been killed by illegal partial-birth abortion procedures or after live birth).
Following the convictions, Handy and most of the co-defendants were denied release while awaiting sentencing. Last month, the U.S. Justice Department filed sentencing memos calling for Handy to serve between 5.25 and 6.5 years in prison, and for the rest of the defendants to serve a minimum of two years. On Monday, Kotar-Kotelly ruled in favor of multiple sentencing enhancements, including obstruction of justice for alleged perjury at trial and for their “victims” (i.e., abortion facility clients) being “vulnerable.”
Handy’s technical sentence was four years and nine months, minus the nine months she has already spent in prison.
“This time has been challenging but I refuse to be jaded. Why? Because life goes on… even in jail,” Handy said on Tuesday morning prior to her sentencing. “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.”
SIGN: Tell Trump to commit to pardoning these pro-life heroes
Imprisoned pro-lifer Heather Idoni, 59, who had a stroke two weeks ago, disclosed to LifeSiteNews that she is a victim of gross medical neglect at the D.C. jail where she is being housed.#ProLife #abortion #RepealFACEAct #FACEAct #news https://t.co/XLTumsSrt7
— LifeSiteNews (@LifeSite) May 14, 2024
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As several pro-life activists languish in jail awaiting trial for peacefully rescuing babies, presidential hopeful Donald Trump must commit to pardoning these heroes, de-federalizing the prosecution of pro-lifers and firing those responsible for this state-sponsored persecution.
SIGN: Tell Trump to restore justice to unfairly arrested pro-lifers.
Arrested for violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act by protesting in front of abortion clinics, the activists' trials are set for May 14 and 15 in Washington and July 2 in Tennessee.
The pro-life movement must stand up for these innocent citizens who were only trying to protect the vulnerable unborn. As it is election year, we are sending Donald Trump a petition to seek his commitment to support us in this undertaking.
The requests are as follows:
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Grant a full pardon of all charges and convictions of the arrested pro-lifers, which will immediately release them and protect them from any attached penalties.
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Pledge to de-federalize prosecution of pro-life rescuers.
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Never allow any DOJ and FBI employee who had anything to do with pro-life persecutions to hold a job in Federal Law Enforcement again, including agents who conducted raids by “obeying orders” and thus showing themselves unfit to wield such power.
SIGN: Tell Trump to commit fully to the pro-life movement.
In the 1990s, Hillary Clinton and Janet Reno federalized prosecution of pro-life rescuers.
Federal (as opposed to local) prosecution almost guarantees conviction, threatens many more years of imprisonment, and guarantees governmental control of the activities of those arrested following release from prison, including monstrous fines and a great deal of probation and parole.
SIGN: Tell Trump to commit fully to the pro-life movement.
As Jonathan Darnel and John Hinshaw noted in a joint letter, “Those of us awaiting sentencing in the upcoming months...fully expect our frothing prosecutors to demand these additional punishments, and our enabling, corrupt judge has not denied them yet.”
While Trump has publicly promised to pardon these pro-life prisoners, we must ask him to eliminate the prospect of other rescuers facing a similar fate in the future.
SIGN: Tell Trump to restore justice to unfairly arrested pro-lifers.
