A pro-life activist found guilty of violating federal law for attempting to prevent late-term abortions of unborn babies at the D.C.-based Washington Surgi-Clinic facility has been sentenced to roughly five years in prison.
As CBN News reported, Lauren Handy and nine other pro-life activists held a sit-in protest at the facility in October of 2020. They sang, prayed out loud, locked arms in front of the facility’s staff entrance, and attached themselves to rope and chains to block doors in the building as a means to “delay the murder of kids.”
The Biden Justice Department charged the group last August with conspiracy to interfere with civil rights and violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act.
Handy was formally sentenced Tuesday to 57 months or five years in prison, plus three years supervision, for her efforts to try to save the lives of preborn babies.
Before the ruling Handy released a statement saying she was “at peace with myself and my future.”
“It has been close to 9 months since I was abruptly ripped from my community,” she wrote. “This has led me to think long and hard about what to say about my sentencing today in federal court.
Some drafts were angry and righteous while most were just a tear-stained longing for my loved ones back home. Yes, this time has been challenging but I refuse to be jaded. Why? Because life goes on… even in jail. So I might as well continue to love and cry and scream and dance. That is joy.”
The news of Handy’s sentencing has angered the pro-life community which alleges the Biden administration has weaponized the Department of Justice to support a pro-abortion agenda.
“Ms. Handy’s 57-month sentence is a miscarriage of justice, plain and simple,” said Steve Crampton, Senior Counsel at Thomas More Society, which represented Handy.
“The caricature of Ms. Handy that the Biden Department of Justice fabricated flies in the face of reality. Ms. Handy should have been shown the same mercy that she has herself shown to countless many downtrodden throughout her young life. It is deeply disappointing that this Court did not see through the Department of Justice’s smoke and mirrors,” he continued.
“But this fight is far from over, and we eagerly look forward to appealing for Ms. Handy and her co-defendants’ freedom, so that the FACE Act can never again be weaponized by the Department of Justice against its ideological opponents,” Crampton added.
