A pro-life activist was sentenced to 57 months in prison Tuesday morning for blocking an abortion clinic in Washington, D.C.
Pro-life activist Lauren Handy and fellow activists were found guilty in Aug. 2023 of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act by blocking access to an abortion clinic, WUSA9 reported. The federal law “prohibits threats of force, obstruction and property damage intended to interfere with reproductive health care services.”
U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ruled that Handy will receive credit for the nine months she has already served, knocking her sentence down to approximately four years remaining, the Daily Caller learned.
Handy’s attorneys compared their client’s civil disobedience to Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks, which an attorney for the U.S. government called “offensive.” The judge added that “the law does not protect violent and obstructive conduct.”
Handy’s sentence includes three years of supervised release, during which the pro-life activist is prohibited from being within 100 feet of an abortion clinic, the Caller learned. Handy requested that she serve her sentence at FCI Danbury, a federal prison in Connecticut.
Handy was charged in March 2022 by the Department of Justice (DOJ) for violating the FACE Act alongside fellow activists John Hinshaw, Heather Idoni, Will Goodman and Herb Geraghty. Handy’s trial began on Aug. 16, 2023, according to WUSA9.
After nearly two days of deliberations, a jury found Handy and eight others guilty of all counts of conspiracy against rights and infringing on the FACE Act, the outlet reported. (RELATED: Trump Says Abortion Restrictions Should Be Left To States)
In 2020, Handy scheduled an appointment under the name “Hazel Jenkins” at the Washington Surgi-Clinic, according to the outlet. Once Handy gained access to the abortion clinic, she and other activists who traveled to the location from an array of different states chained and roped off the building’s entrance in a demonstration meant to prevent more abortions from occurring.
The DOJ just unsealed an indictment against anti-abortion activist and “Catholic anarchist” Lauren Handy and eight other defendants for forcibly blocking a clinic in D.C. in late 2020. Handy and Goodman have charges pending in a similar case in Michigan. pic.twitter.com/pKJz6psjTJ
— Jordan Fischer (@JordanOnRecord) March 30, 2022
Attorneys with the Thomas Moore Society argued that Handy was acting out of a desire to defend unborn children. However, Kollar-Kotelly said in her decision on Aug. 7, 2023 that the anti-abortion defense was not “legally viable” and that she would not allow citizens to don a “vigilante’s hood.”