Pro-lifers try to rescue unborn kids, now face many years in prison

(Photo by Nataliya Vaitkevich on Pexels)

Members of a team of pro-life advocates who allegedly blocked access to an abortion business are on trial, facing up to 11 years in prison for their attempt to save unborn lives.

And a report at the Federalist said the situation is representative of a Department of Justice, which reports ultimately to Joe Biden, that is being "excessively punitive toward pro-life Americans."

Explained the report, "Eleven years is a long time. In previous years, pro-life activists convicted of similar behavior have often received one-, three-, and six-month sentences, avoiding longer sentences on the technicality that they have not blocked entrances to the facilities, which the FACE Act specifically prohibits. Father Fidelis Moscinski, for example, is currently finishing a three-month sentence in Nassau County for entering an abortion facility on Long Island and providing roses and counsel for expectant mothers."

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But, the report charged, "disproportion and immoderation" are par for the course at the DOJ that is becoming well-known for its leftist ideologies.

It was Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly who recently ordered that the defendants are not allowed to use as a defense their efforts to protect others from harm.

Explained the Federalist report: "But is the idea that abortion ends the life of another human being 'a situation of [a defendant’s] own making'' Or is it a fact? That’s a question Louis C. K. surprisingly explored in his Netflix special '2017,' when he made viral comments about the extreme tactics pro-life activists sometimes use to convince expectant mothers not to pursue the procedure."

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Is an 11-year prison sentence an absurdly long punishment for blocking access to an abortion clinic?

That program explained, "They think babies are being murdered. What are they supposed to be like?"

That, the report explained, was the focal point for a group of about a dozen who entered a Washington, D.C., abortion business in 2020 and tried to block its operations.

Defendants are Lauren Handy, Jonathan Darnel of Virginia, Herb Geraghty of Pennsylvania, Jay Smith and John Hinshaw of New York, Paulette Harlow and Jean Marshall of Massachusetts, Heather Idoni and William Goodman of Wisconsin, and Joan Bell of New Jersey.

Smith took a plea deal and was sentenced to 10 months, but the others face that possible 11-year term plus $350,000 in fines at trial.

"The question of whether the nine are guilty hinges, of course, on one’s answer to Louis C. K.’s question: Does abortion actually end a child’s life? The judge has already signaled her opinion, suggesting the defendants’ behavior constitutes vigilantism imposed onto narratives of their own creation," the report said.

Strangely, the federal FACE Act never has been used against someone attacking a pro-life pregnancy center or a house of worship, the report noted, even though at least 88 pro-life resource centers and groups have been targeted in just a little over a year.

A report from Live Action News explains that the judge in the case barred the use of Live Action's undercover abortion investigation video in the trial.

She claimed that the accurate reporting and documentation contained within was nothing but "propaganda" and "gossip from propagandists."

In that video, Washington Surgi-Clinic abortionist Cesare Santangelo says that if a child was born alive in his facility during an abortion, "we would not help it." Handy testified that it was this video which shaped her belief that abortion survivors at Santangelo’s facility would be left to die.

The report cited the "condescending" and "derisive" comments from prosecutor Sanjay Patel, who was warned by the judge about his sarcasm, the report said.

And when a defendant pointed out to Patel that in Washington some abortions are illegal, under the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003, both the prosecutor and the judge seemed ignorant, the report said.

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Ballard's concerns are confirmed by Tara Lee Rodas, a Health and Human Services whistleblower who recently testified before Congress that under Joe Biden, "THE U.S. GOVERNMENT HAS BECOME THE MIDDLEMAN IN A LARGE-SCALE, MULTI-BILLION-DOLLAR CHILD TRAFFICKING OPERATION."

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