{"id":298470,"date":"2023-09-12T16:43:09","date_gmt":"2023-09-12T21:43:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=298470"},"modified":"2023-09-21T12:54:32","modified_gmt":"2023-09-21T17:54:32","slug":"joan-andrews-bell-matriarch-pro-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/joan-andrews-bell-matriarch-pro-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Woman known as ‘matriarch of pro-life activism’ is facing 11 years in prison"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Joan Andrews Bell was 24 years old when she learned that the Supreme Court had legalized abortion in Roe v. Wade<\/em>. It changed the course of her life, leading her up to this moment in 2023 at age 74, as she stands trial on federal charges for rescue action<\/a>\u00a0she and other pro-lifers took to save babies from abortion in October 2020 at the D.C.-based Washington Surgi-Clinic run by abortionist Cesare Santangelo<\/a>. They are\u00a0charged<\/a>\u00a0with conspiracy against rights and a FACE (Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances) Act offense.<\/p>\n

The start of Joan’s pro-life work<\/strong><\/p>\n

After news broke in 2022 that Roe<\/em> might be overturned, Joan spoke<\/a> with LifeSiteNews about her mission. “I was overwhelmed by shock [at Roe v. Wade<\/em>] and because I had studied about Nazi Germany as a preteen and teenager and knew how horrific that government had been even though it was a country that had been Christian… and that had horrified me when I studied it,” she said. “And here, I always believed America was a moral country, a Christian country, a decent country, so I was in total shock and very upset because it’s like we had become Nazi Germany.”<\/p>\n

She was shocked a second time when she didn’t hear about the Supreme Court decision from the Church. She was looking for direction and didn’t receive it, so she began her own path to save babies from abortion, feeling that she couldn’t face God upon her death if she didn’t do everything she could to protect them.<\/p>\n

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