On August 9, 2023, five pro-lifers filed into the federal courtroom of Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly. They are five of ten pro-lifers who, on October 22, 2020, conducted a pro-life rescue at the Washington Surgi-Center where unborn children are killed through the ninth month of gestation by abortionist Cesare Santangelo.
This is the same abortion center where, on March 25, 2022, the driver of a medical waste truck arrived at the center and handed boxes containing one hundred and fifteen aborted babies to Lauren Handy and Terrisa Bukovinac when the two pro-lifers, who were present at the “clinic,” asked for them. One hundred and ten of those victims, aborted in the first trimester, have already been buried….
Handy, the lead defendant in America v. Handy, is joined by Will Goodman, John Hinshaw, Heather Idoni, and Herb Geraghty. Their very dedicated and able attorneys are Robert Dunn, John Kiyonaga, Alfred Guillaune, Blerina Jasari, Martin Cannon, Steve Crampton, and Howard Walsh. The latter three are associated with the Thomas More Society, the pro-life legal defense group headquartered in Chicago.
Four other pro-lifers, Jonathan Darnell, Paulette Harlow, Jean Marshall, and well-known pro-life activist Joan Andrews Bell, will be tried before the same judge beginning September 6th. One pro-lifer, whose situation I will discuss later, “copped a plea” with the Department of Justice in order to avoid prosecution.
The pro-lifers have been charged with the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE), with a maximum one-year jail term and an additional federal charge of conspiracy to interfere with civil rights that carries a maximum ten year jail term and a maximum $350,000 fine. Thus, altogether, the pro-lifers, should they be convicted, are facing a possible eleven years in federal prison and hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines….
Twenty-nine years later, so many aspects of the current FACE trial are historically unprecedented. Charges were brought after a grand jury investigation. This was followed by a seven-state FBI sting operation in which agents literally burst into the homes of two defendants with battering rams and guns drawn, dragging pro-lifers out in the dead of night. These are the first pro-lifers to be charged with the federal law of conspiracy to interfere with civil rights—causing them to face the possible additional ten-year jail term.
The FBI conducted a seven-state sting operation in which agents literally burst into the homes of two defendants with battering rams and guns drawn, dragging pro-lifers out in the dead of night.
It’s the first case in which pro-lifers were pressured by the DOJ with spending time in jail should they be convicted, prompting the defendant mentioned earlier, the unmarried father of two young children, to plead “guilty” to all charges and thus “cut a deal” with the feds. However, this “deal” wasn’t much of a break, as he was still stuck with a ten-month jail term in federal prison! One must wonder, if that’s what you get in a plea agreement, what can the other pro-lifers who opted to stand trial expect should they be convicted!
Finally, also unprecedented in the history of pro-life activism is the testimony of Caroline Davis—who, once full of zeal to end abortion, even participating in rescues, including a Red Rose Rescue with this author, will be testifying for the prosecution against the pro-lifers! Davis was arrested in two other rescues and charged with FACE, and she was present at the rescue at Santangelo’s abortion center.
However, she was threatened with the same charges as the other defendants for merely being there in support of the rescue. To avoid prosecution, she “cut a deal” with the feds. As part of that deal, she had to agree to testify against the pro-lifers. In an FBI interview, she completely disavowed pro-life rescues, saying that she now sees the “error of her ways….”
By Monica Miller in Crisis Magazine
A massive persecution of Christians is underway! Pray, Pray, Pray!
If you are a father of young children who depend on you, you should not be committing criminal acts, regardless of whether you think the laws are immoral. I don’t care how prolife you are. You need to think about your own children and what’s good for them.
We need to think about all our brothers and sisters in Christ especially the most innocent.
Your duty of charity is stronger to your immediate family. The dad who was sentenced to jail acted irresponsibly. I’d even say he sinned in negligence to his paternal responsibility. It’s all the more serious that he’s described as “unmarried”. So if mom isn’t in the picture, who will take care of the kids while he’s in jail?
Or is he divorced and compensating by being militantly prolife? Interesting psychological dynamic there to consider.
And you object to the activity of Martin Luther King too?
MLK isn’t doing much these days.
If they’re not baptized, which no unborn child is, then they are not brothers or sisters “in Christ”.
The unbaptized are fellow human beings, made in the image of God, but that’s not the same thing as being “in Christ”. Baptism makes a difference. Only baptism (by water, desire, or blood) incorporates one into the Church, making someone a brother or sister “in Christ” to all the other baptized people.
“MLK isn’t doing much these days.”….so there is no Church Triumphant?
your own children, tried to give you a thumbs up but it did not work.
Was the Catholic family who sheltered Jews from Nazis, and will be beatified next month, wrong to do so?
https://www.oursundayvisitor.com/the-story-of-one-crime-a-forceful-look-at-a-martyred-family/?mkt_tok=NDI3LUxFUS0wNjYAAAGNZBWvE-X9_gKsnfpSn-_LejgX1fw4wiUlvL4rD3OcN8GZf-cEke6aoyxKovU56VUP8X1-GQLt5nsTYPJ_FK-quFPDUtuCtY6-84VAud4
Yes, they were wrong. They should not have put their young children at risk. So, trying to save two lives, they ended up having more than ten people killed. Way to go.
And you object to the canonization of Felicity and Perpetua too?
The Ulmas were sheltering eight Jews. But, who are we to do that kind of moral mathematics and judge them as wrong?
Praying for and protecting the unborn are now considered a criminal act. God help us.
I hope they get a light sentence but they should not break the law.
God does not approve of it.
Do everything else to save those babies.
A woman having an abortion at 7 months probably has been told that it is in her and the baby’s best interest.
Conversation and alternatives would be better.
The Washington Surgi-cares website says they provide abortions for pregnancies up to 27 weeks in gestation, which is the first week of the third trimester.
When an author starts her article with a lie (“analogy”) even though she admits it later in the article, it throws into question her truthfulness.
Let us hope and pray, though they face possible sentences of 11 years, that a just verdict (and sentencing, if convicted) is reached.
If any of them receive 11 years in prison, that would clearly be punishment based on politics and ideology, not public safety. Think of violent criminals who often serve less time. And, the child killers in that facility face no consequences (this side of eternity). Cesare Santangelo kills babies up until birth. Pray for his repentance and conversion. Lord, have mercy on our nation.
The judge is trying to keep this away from ideology.
If you read the whole article, that is kind of the author’s complaint..
Deacon Craig Anderson, anybody that says that an abortionist kills babies up until birth is not telling you the truth.
not true, for more on late term abortions, see the link pasted below.
Also, “Every single Democrat in the U.S. Senate (but one) voted for a bill that would allow abortion… any time, for any reason, UP UNTIL THE MOMENT OF BIRTH…and they wanted you to pay for it,” Center for Election Integrity J. Hogan Gidley wrote. “That IS the Democrat position.” And, of course, it’s the position of Gavin Newsom and Joe Biden. They’ve said so.
What restrictions on abortion do you support?
https://www.liveaction.org/news/?s=late+term+abortion
I think, again, terms need definition. I am talking a full term, 39-40 week pregnancy. That is how I interpret “up to the moment of birth.”
I am not talking about a 23 week pregnancy where the baby is induced and then murdered.
I support all restrictions on abortion. Should never be done.
not true. There is plenty of anecdotal evidence to prove you wrong. Abortionists have killed plenty of babies up until birth, and even after, as in the case of Dr. Kermit Gosnell and others.
American blue state cities are being destroyed by criminal acts and those people are not even being prosecuted. Yet these pro-life citizens that are protecting innocent unborn children are being charged and persecuted with serious offences that could lead to prison time. Wake up America!
It’s the FBI that should be investigated for persecuting decent Americans.
All convicted. All are in prison right now. They fought the law and the law won. FAFO
How could they be in prison? They have not been sentenced.
They were remanded to prison immediately upon conviction pending sentencing to begin serving what will ultimately be decided as their sentences, which will include jail time. Time served begins now.
“Peter thus was being kept in prison, but prayer by the church was fervently being made to God on his behalf.”–Acts 12:5
The law didn’t win. America lost.