Five pro-life activists have been found guilty on charges of conspiracy against rights and violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act in connection with a 2020 "rescue action" they undertook at a Washington, D.C.–based abortion clinic.
The incident began when pro-life activist Lauren Handy made an appointment at the Washington Surgi-Clinic under a fake name. When clinic staff opened the door, pro-life activists rushed from the building's emergency stairwell into the facility, where they formed a blockade for more than three hours until authorities removed them. The incident allegedly led to an altercation that left a clinic employee hospitalized with an ankle injury.
Prosecutors accused Handy, William Goodman, John Hinshaw, Heather Idoni, and Herb Geraghty of violating the FACE Act, which is a federal law that prohibits the use of physical force, threats of force, or the intentional damaging of property to prevent someone from obtaining or providing abortion services.
Prosecutors presented body-camera footage to the jury that purportedly showed Handy telling officers that the group was there to “block the facility to prevent abortions.” In the footage, Handy also reportedly explained that some of the pro-life activists didn’t want to “risk the ordinance” and would therefore be praying outside the clinic.
Martin Cannon, an attorney for Handy and senior counsel for the Thomas More Society, said during trial that Handy had not physically blocked anyone or violated the FACE Act.
Handy and Geraghty said their decision to blockade the clinic was inspired by Live Action’s “Inhuman: Undercover in America’s Late-Term Abortion Industry” video, which was released ten years ago and shows Cesare Santangelo, the head of the Washington Surgi-Clinic, telling an undercover woman that if she went into labor and delivered before the “termination part of the procedure . . . then we would not help it.”
“We wouldn't intubate, let's say,” Santangelo said in the video.
However, the video was not permitted to be played in court. Judge Kollar-Kotelly dismissed the video as “heavily edited” and “gossip from propagandists.”
Pro-life activists condemned the guilty verdict on Tuesday.
“Judge Kollar-Kotelly has repeatedly shown her pro-abortion bias during this trial and made a total mockery of our justice system,” Live Action founder Lila Rose said in a post on X. “She failed to know decades-old abortion laws, openly mocked the defendants, and refused key evidence to the defense.”
“This potential sentencing of 11 years in prison is a blatant abuse of political power against pro-lifers,” she added. “The FACE Act was created with the explicit purpose of targeting pro-life Americans who are using their free speech to protect the right to life of vulnerable preborn children.”
Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America called it a “a shameful day for a nation founded on unalienable rights, first and foremost including life.”
“Pro-life advocates like Lauren Handy have put their freedom on the line — peacefully and bravely — to protect babies and women from the brutality of abortion. They have done a vital public service in exposing the horrors of late-term abortion taking place in D.C., where there are no limits on abortion up to birth, and across the country,” the group said in a statement to Fox News.
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