Morning Briefing: Anti-Abortion Activists Indicted for Violations of FACE Act; Police Discover Fetuses at Defendant's Home
Morning Briefing: Anti-Abortion Activists Indicted for Violations of FACE Act; Police Discover Fetuses at Defendant's Home
The U.S. Department of Justice announced indictments of nine anti-abortion activists for violations of the FACE Act; law enforcement discovered five fetuses at the home of one of the defendants.
Morning Briefing: Lauren Handy, an anti-abortion activists, was among nine defendants indicted and charged for “federal civil rights offenses in connection with an alleged reproductive healthcare clinic invasion in Washington, D.C.,” according to a press release by the U.S. Department of Justice.
An arrested warrant was issued and executed for Handy, and they were released on “personal recognizance bond,” according to court documents.
The Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police Department reportedly found five human fetuses inside Handy’s home, and “homicide and forensic services detectives took evidence out in red biohazard bags and coolers from the rowhouse's basement.” Local law enforcement’s search of Handy’s home was apparently unrelated to the federal indictment, but rather a response to an anonymous tip regarding “potential bio-hazard material.”
Handy reportedly stated that “people will freak out when they hear.”
Handy founded the anti-abortion organization Mercy Missions, and the organization’s website describes Handy as an “unashamedly pro-life” activist who “confronts the culture of death head on." Handy is also the Director of Activism of the “progressive grassroots activists” organization Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising, and the organization plans to “address the claims surrounding the 5 deceased children” found at Handy’s home during an upcoming press conference.
Randall Terry, a notorious anti-abortion activist who founded the radical anti-abortion group Operation Rescue, is reportedly acting as the organization's media contact, and claimed that the fetuses found in Handy’s home were from the clinic named in the indictment but were not obtained during the alleged violation of the FACE Act.
"On a different time, the babies were retrieved. There's a direct connection. We're going to lay out a timeline,” Terry told BuzzFeed News.
Handy is also an alumni of Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust, the anti-abortion youth training group known as the “farm team” of the extremist anti-abortion movement, and is among the radical anti-abortion activists involved in the resurgence of so-called “clinic rescues.”
Anti-abortion activists have a long history of using fetuses as props for various political purposes, as well as staging public memorials or funerals for aborted fetuses.
Other defendants named in the FACE Act indictment: Jonathan Darnel, Jay Smith, Paulette Harlow, Jean Marshall, John Hinshaw, Heather Idoni, William Goodman, and Joan Bell. If convicted, the defendants could each face “up to a maximum of 11 years in prison, three years of supervised release, and a fine of up to $350,000,” according to a press release by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia.
An arrested warrant was also issued and executed for Darnel.
*Update* — National Abortion Federation (NAF) statement on the indictment: “We are grateful that the Justice Department took this action to make it clear that they won't tolerate people blocking access to abortion care.”
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