{"id":312305,"date":"2024-05-14T11:54:32","date_gmt":"2024-05-14T16:54:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=312305"},"modified":"2025-02-06T00:55:39","modified_gmt":"2025-02-06T06:55:39","slug":"sentencing-pro-life-activists-judge-abortion-need","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/sentencing-pro-life-activists-judge-abortion-need\/","title":{"rendered":"Sentencing begins for pro-life activists, with Lauren Handy receiving nearly 5 years"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

On May 14, the sentencing of a group of pro-life activists convicted of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinics (FACE) Act and “conspiracy against rights” began. The first on the docket was pro-life activist Lauren Handy, who was sentenced to nearly five years in prison, followed by John Hinshaw, who was sentenced to nearly two years.<\/p>\n

The sentencing of nine pro-life activists began on Tuesday with the hearings of three of the activists convicted<\/a> last year of violating the FACE Act. Handy, Hinshaw, and William Goodman have been imprisoned since their convictions on August 29, 2023, when they were found guilty<\/a> of conspiring to violate civil rights and blocking access to notorious abortionist Cesare Santangelo\u2019s Washington, D.C., abortion business in October of 2020.<\/p>\n

The activists are said to have used chains, bike locks, furniture, and their bodies to prevent abortions from being committed and to prevent police from removing them from the premises \u2014 protest tactics commonly used today and even in decades past.<\/p>\n

The conspiracy statute<\/a> under which the activists have been charged is 18 U.S.C. \u00a7 241<\/b>, which “makes it unlawful for two or more persons to agree to injure, threaten, or intimidate a person in the United States in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured by the Constitution or laws of the United States or because of his or her having exercised such a right. Unlike most conspiracy statutes, \u00a7241 does\u00a0not\u00a0<\/strong>require, as an element, the commission of an overt act.” Interestingly, even as abortion advocates push to undo laws from the 1800s (like Arizona’s pro-life law from 1864<\/a>, which lawmakers recently voted to revoke<\/a>, as well as federal Comstock laws<\/a> against mailing<\/a> abortion drugs across state lines), this particular statute was put in place in 1870. Forbes notes (emphasis added):<\/p>\n

Section 241 was initially passed after the Civil War as part of the Enforcement Act of 1870 as a way to punish members of the Ku Klux Klan<\/strong> and other Southerners from intimidating or harassing Black voters for exercising their new voting rights, but has since been used more broadly to thwart attempts to interfere in federal elections.<\/em><\/p>\n

However, the DOJ’s civil rights division notes<\/a> that “Section 241 is used in Law Enforcement Misconduct and Hate Crime Prosecutions. It was historically used, before conspiracy-specific trafficking statutes were adopted, in Human Trafficking prosecutions.”<\/p>\n

Now, it has been used against pro-lifers seeking to prevent homicide against preborn human beings.<\/p>\n

Lauren Handy<\/strong><\/p>\n

Thirty-year-old Handy was represented<\/a> by Steve Crampton and Martin Cannon, both Thomas More Society Senior Counsel. In a statement, Thomas More Society said, “These charges were brought by the Biden Department of Justice against Handy and several other pro-life advocates and carried a potential sentence of up to 11 years. The Biden Department of Justice requested a sentence up to six-and-a-half years, while Thomas More Society attorneys asked the Court to show leniency with a 12-month sentence\u2014which effectively amounts to time-served.”<\/p>\n

Instead, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly sentenced Handy more in accord with the DOJ’s request \u2014 57 months with credit for the time served (nine months). Handy will spend the next 48 months \u2014 four years<\/em> \u2014 in prison. She also faces fines totaling $125. After her release in 2028, she will be placed on probation, will be prohibited from knowingly entering or coming within 1,000 feet of an abortion facility, and must submit to a mental health assessment and treatment program.<\/p>\n

Cannon told Kollar-Kotelly, “This case involves a life and death issue, an issue that goes to the heart of the country. [Lauren] is a person of good faith, acting according to her conscience.” He called Handy’s activism “a fairly classical offense of civil disobedience, like Martin Luther King, or like refusing to give up your seat on the bus.” Handy, he said, is a “peaceful person, whose focus is on passivity and is selfless and kindhearted.”<\/p>\n

Kollar-Kotelly, however, said she found Handy’s activism to be uncaring towards the women seeking abortion.<\/p>\n

“Neither you nor any of the other co-conspirators showed any compassion, empathy, toward those two women needing medical care,” Kollar-Kotelly said<\/a>. “Your views took precedence over, frankly, their human needs.”<\/p>\n

There is no ‘human need’ for induced abortion, which is the direct and intentional killing<\/em> of preborn children in the womb. Intentionally killing preborn children is not medically necessary<\/a> and no mother should be made to feel she “needs” to kill her baby to overcome any challenges she faces. Washington, D.C., has no restrictions on abortion and allows children in the womb to be killed at any time during pregnancy for any reason.<\/p>\n