A total of seven pro-life activists were sentenced to prison this week over a protest at a Washington, D.C., abortion facility in 2020.
Three activists were sentenced on Tuesday and another four on Wednesday after they were convicted of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act Act and conspiracy against rights, a charge that could have led to over a decade in prison. All seven were prosecuted by the Biden administration after they staged a sit-in at the D.C.-based Washington Surgi-Clinic late-term abortion facility.
On Wednesday, Jonathan Darnel, Herb Geraghty, Jean Marshall, and Joan Bell were all sentenced to prison. Darnel got 34 months in prison, Geraghty got 27 months, Marshall got 24 months, and Bell got 27 months. The sentences followed Tuesday’s sentencing of Lauren Handy to 57 months in prison, as well as John Hinshaw (21 months) and William Goodman (27 months).
During the protest, the pro-life protesters sang songs, prayed, locked arms in front of the facility’s staff entrance, and attached themselves with ropes and chains to block doors inside the building.
In March 2022, authorities were called to the home of Handy to recover the bodies of five premie-size aborted babies. Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising (PAAU) activists previously said that they found the box of aborted babies that was on its way from Washington Surgi-Clinic to Curtis Bay Medical Waste Facility to be incinerated. The PAAU activists called police and asked for autopsies on the babies.
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“As evidenced by today’s sentencings, the FBI and our judicial system will not tolerate the obstruction of civil rights,” said David Sundberg of the FBI Washington Field Office. “The FBI will continue to investigate FACE Act violations in all jurisdictions, so patients and providers can exercise their right to receive or provide lawful reproductive health care without the threat of violence or intimidation.”
Also set to be sentenced over the D.C. protest is 59-year-old Heather Idoni, who was also convicted earlier this year of similar charges over a protest at a Tennessee abortion facility.
On Thursday, several Republican lawmakers sent a letter to the Federal Bureau of Prisons and U.S. Marshals Service that Idoni and Marshall were not getting necessary medical treatment while in federal custody. The questions relate to treatment of Idoni for a heart condition and diabetes and hip surgery for Marshall.