Anti-Abortion extremist Lauren Handy was slammed with a four-year prison sentence this morning after she and other allies used ropes and chains to blockade the entrance to an abortion clinic in 2020.
The federal judge who dished out the punishment said Handy, 30, and eight co-defendants, knowingly conspired to directly violate the civil rights of patients seeking the procedure. Handy, who leads the group Progressive Anti-Abortion uprising, had a similar run-in with the law in 2022.
Washington D.C law enforcement officials uncovered five sets of human fetal remains in her home after conducting a raid but did not specify their origins. By that time, the activist had been painted as an extremist egged on by her religion, calling herself a "Catholic anarchist."
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Handy showed little to no emotion when the news broke, reportedly saying “People will freak out when they hear.” Her image has fared no better on X, where she claimed to "liberate" fetal remains "from med [sic] waste companies and give them a proper burial.” She was never charged. Today, the PAAU leader was found guilty for violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act for forcing their way into a Washington DC clinic under false names.
Handy and her co-conspirators utilized bike chains, furniture, locks and their bodies to prevent patients from entering the clinic to undergo their surgeries.
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The other guilty parties were punished with more leniency—Jay Smith, who pleaded guilty to violating the Face Act, received only 10 months in prison. The rest of Handy's cronies, Johnathan Darnel, Herb Geraghty, Joan Andrews Bell, William Goodman, Paulette Harlow, Jean Marshall, John Hinshaw and Heather Idoni, were all given a minimum sentence of two years at the request of prosecutors. While awaiting sentencing, the nine total defendants spent their days inside the D.C jail.
They asked that Handy serve a minimum of six years in prison over her callous crime. However, presiding US District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, despite saying she was struck by Handy's crime, decided to shave two years off the proposed sentencing. There was also a possibility that the group would be forced to pay about $350,000 in fines if convicted.
"Neither you nor any of the other co-conspirators showed any compassion, empathy, toward those two women needing medical care," Kollar-Kotelly said. "Your views took precedence over, frankly, their human needs."
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Handy's actions to unconstitutionally limit women's access to abortion came at a time when the right was under attack—police raided the extremist's home about three months before the conservative-majority supreme court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022.
Ironically, Republican-led US states have struggled to consolidate to determine a feasible abortion ban that works for everyone as many believe a total, nation-wide ban is far too cruel.
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