Father Stephen Imbarrato and Linda Mueller were arrested this morning (May 14) inside SurgiClinic, a late-term abortion center in D.C.’s upscale Foggy Botton neighborhood, near George Washington University. Today is the 15th anniversary of Imbarrato’s ordination to the Catholic priesthood.

Father Fidelis Moscinski, CFR, Will Goodman, and Joan McKee are inside Capital Women’s Services, a late-term abortion facility that advertises abortions up to 36 weeks into pregnancy. The facility, whose online reviews are replete with criticisms of it as “terrifying,” “dirty,” “filthy,” and “unprofessional,” shares a building with a D.C. Department of Health office.

The activists are conducting a Red Rose Rescue during which they offer moms roses and beg them to not to go through with scheduled abortions. The Red Rose Rescue movement is inspired by Canadian pro-life activist Mary Wagner. It is something of a revival of the rescue movement of the early days of the pro-life movement, before the Federal Access to Clinic Entrances Act imposed harsh penalties on pro-lifers who save babies by physically blocking “access” to abortion facilities.

Yesterday two pro-lifers were arrested and five received trespassing citations at a Red Rose Rescue and pro-life protest in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

“Steven Brigham, who allegedly owns Capital Women’s Center, and Cesare Santangelo, who owns and operates SurgiClinic, both have notorious and well-publicized pasts as abortionists,” Imbarrato told LifeSiteNews. “In spite of their dark histories, because they operate in Washington, D.C. – which offers no abortion restrictions or any oversight of abortion facilities – these two men go unnoticed because they operate in multi-unit buildings.”

Imbarrato, who spent seven days in a Washington, D.C. jail for his participation in a 2017 rescue, told LifeSiteNews the layouts of SurgiClinic and Capital Women’s Services pose unique challenges to pro-life activists.

“Rarely if ever do pro-lifers pray or counsel in front of these facilities because, the offices being hidden in multi-unit buildings, pro-lifers cannot normally access or identify the women entering the building as pregnant moms in crisis,” the priest explained. “Thus we enter the buildings and counsel the women in the waiting rooms or in the halls outside the waiting rooms of these abortionists. Many babies have been saved in past Red Rose Rescues in these facilities – babies that otherwise would have died.”

The rescuers are reportedly wearing masks and not standing close to others in accordance with the current recommended coronavirus guidelines. Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser just extended the city’s strict lockdown until June 8, under which abortion is apparently considered essential.

“Our primary concern is lovingly interacting with the moms in the hope of saving their babies,” said Imbarrato. “All the rescuers risking arrest trying to save these babies are serious Catholics and thus are additionally motivated by the fact that these governments which sanction, protect, and fund the murder of babies have, in this COVID-19 crisis, deemed these murders as ‘essential’ while proclaiming the Catholic Church ‘non-essential.’ As a Catholic priest, and I am sure my Catholic colleagues would agree, trying to save babies from the intrinsic evil of abortion is essential and necessary.”

The above comes from a May 14 story on LifeSiteNews.