I hope you never have to see someone you love frog-marched off to jail. It’s not something I ever expected to experience. But last August, that’s exactly what happened as two U.S. Marshalls flanked my 69-year-old godfather and whisked him out the back door of a courtroom to the Alexandria Detention Facility, where he’s been held for nine months pending sentencing as a violent felon.
How did we get here? Well, for that, we’ll have to go back a ways.
Operation Rescue
Since the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade (1973), the Pro-Life Movement has pursued a multitude of tactics to save mothers and babies from the devastating abortion procedure.
The jury was filled with members who admitted to supporting pro-abortion groups such as Planned Parenthood.
One tactic was Operation Rescue, which built on the sit-in tactics of the Civil Rights Movement. Where civil rights activists peacefully took their seats at businesses that denied service to blacks, refusing to leave until removed by police, pro-life activists in the 1980s began peacefully sitting in at the entrances to abortion clinics, blocking the doors and thereby preventing any abortions from taking place until they were removed by police. At the same time, these activists shared options and resources with the women arriving for abortion appointments. According to the organization Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising, it is estimated that 60 percent of women who had abortion appointments scheduled on the day that a Rescue took place never rescheduled.
The success of Operation Rescue didn’t go unnoticed by the abortion industry or its supporters in government.
Therefore, in 1994, President Clinton signed the FACE (Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances) Act, making obstruction of an abortion facility a federal crime punishable by up to a year in prison for a first offense. Previously, Operation Rescue arrests appropriately fell under the category of simple trespassing laws with penalties ranging from fines to a few days in jail.
Though thousands of pro-lifers could risk days in prison, few found themselves in a position to risk years behind bars. And so, for 25 years, Rescue faded.
But, in recent years, some pro-lifers determined that it was time for a revival of Rescue despite the risks. That’s where my godfather comes in.
My Uncle John always felt a calling to save babies through Rescue. That’s how he came, along with nine other pro-life activists, to be peacefully blocking the entrance to abortionist Cesare Santangelo’s Washington Surgi-Center operating room in Washington, D.C. on October 22, 2020.
Police eventually arrested the activists, who were then interviewed by an FBI agent. After being scheduled for March 2021 court appearances, they were released. These appearances were subsequently postponed indefinitely. The court never made clear why the hearings were postponed.
The Pro-Life Five
One of the pro-life activists involved in the 2020 Rescue was Lauren Handy. Two years later, on March 25, 2022, Lauren and her colleague, Terrisa Bukovinac, were outside Washington Surgi-Center when they spotted a medical waste truck picking up boxes from the abortion business. The driver agreed to surrender one box to the women upon learning that it was full of dead babies.
On opening the box, Lauren and Terrisa discovered the bodies of 110 first-trimester babies and five late-term children bearing injuries indicating that they were killed either after birth or via partial-birth abortion, both of which are federal crimes.
For four days, the women attempted, without success, to find a private pathologist to examine the late-term babies. When those efforts failed, they worked with an attorney to alert the D.C. medical examiner and Washington D.C. police to the existence of the bodies, requesting “an investigation and forensic examinations be undertaken as required by applicable law.” Authorities instructed them to leave the door to Lauren’s apartment unlocked so that police could enter and retrieve the bodies. The women did so and stayed at Terrisa’s house for the night.
The next morning, the FBI conducted early-morning raids on the ten pro-life activists who had participated in the Rescue two years earlier. My Uncle John responded to the 6:00 a.m. pounding on his door to discover agents poised with a battering ram ready to smash their way into his house. Lauren Handy was immediately swarmed by agents and taken into custody upon returning to her apartment. All ten activists were indicted on charges of violating the FACE Act and “conspiracy against rights,” a charge that brought the potential penalties from a year in prison to up to eleven years and $350,000 in fines for each activist.
The Trial
In August 2023, the case went to trial. The jury was filled with members who admitted to supporting pro-abortion groups such as Planned Parenthood. The odds were stacked against the defendants.
When time came for the verdict, the jury stated its decision for each defendant on the charges of conspiracy and violating the FACE Act and the question of whether “force” was used: “Guilty.” Turning to the prosecution, Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly stated that, given all the defendants had been found guilty of using force, she could have them immediately incarcerated as violent felons if the prosecution so requested, despite the understanding prior to trial that they would be allowed to return home to their families pending sentencing.
The order was given. Two U.S. Marshalls descended on each prisoner and marched them out a back door. I haven’t seen Uncle John in person since. Neither has his wife, his children, or his grandchildren.
Our first opportunity to do so will be on May 14 as he is brought with his fellow prisoners back to court for sentencing, nine months after being found guilty.
It is imperative that Americans stand up against this blatant persecution of pro-lifers by the government. If you are in the D.C. area, we invite you to join us at E. Barrett Prettyman Courthouse at 9:00 a.m. on May 14 to stand in solidarity with these unjustly imprisoned activists.
Clare Hinshaw is the Legacy Society & Development Relations Director at Young America’s Foundation, the leading youth outreach organization in the Conservative movement, where she fosters relationships with the foundation’s supporters and organizes the annual Standing Up for Faith & Freedom seminar for students at Catholic schools. Clare is a 2012 graduate of Franciscan University of Steubenville and a 2021–2022 Leonine Forum fellow, and she was the host of the third season of the television program Book.ed on ShalomWorld TV.
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