The Washington Post reported earlier this year that two self-described "anti-abortion" activists who claimed to have obtained dozens of aborted babies from a D.C. facility were sent to jail for trespassing at an Alexandria women's clinic. Lauren Handy, who faces similar charges in multiple cases around the country, was sentenced in Alexandria District Court to 30 days in jail in July. Terrisa Bukovinac was sentenced to four days.
The two, The Washington Post continues, were among six activists who trespassed in the waiting room of the Alexandria Women's Health Clinic in November 2021, handing out roses to abortion-minded women and encouraging them to choose life for their children.
Caroline Taylor Smith of the Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising (PAAU) says in June, Handy was found guilty by a jury of trespassing and resisting police during the protest at the Flint, Michigan abortion clinic in 2019. She was scheduled to be sentenced there in September, facing up to two years in jail; just last week, Handy and three other PAAU protestors were sentenced to 45 days in jail for obstructing the clinic's operations.
Smith says an appeal is "definitely" being filed.
"We actually asked for them to be released during the appeal process, and the judge denied that," she details. "So, there will be an appeal right now, but they're going to be in the jail while that is happening."
But Smith tells AFN her organization will not be deterred as long as the genocide of preborn babies continues.
"We are extremely adamant in that this will not stop us from continuing to rescue the unborn," the PAAU member asserts. "The unborn do have the right to be rescued, and we will not let our short-lived suffering or consequences that we might receive from the government stop us from rescuing and doing these actions."
While arrests, court cases, and jail time, are unpleasant, she says none of that compares to the excruciating pain a baby feels when removed limb-by-limb from his or her mother's womb.
PAAU is "committed to radical inclusivity while magnifying secular, feminist, liberal, and LGBTQIA+ identifying pro-life voices, especially those belonging to people of color" and recognizes that "biologically speaking, fertilization (or conception) is the beginning of human development."
