An anti-abortion leader who made headlines in 2022 after Washington, D.C., authorities discovered fetal remains inside her apartment was one of several activists pardoned by President Donald Trump on Thursday.
Twenty-three people who were convicted of illegally blockading reproductive health clinics under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act received a pardon by Trump on Thursday. (According to the Department of Justice, the FACE Act “prohibits threats of force, obstruction and property damage intended to interfere with reproductive health care services.”)
An appeal document by the United States District Court obtained by HuffPost confirmed that Lauren Handy, 31, a leader in Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising, was among those who were pardoned.
Handy called a clinic in D.C. and claimed she was “Hazel Jenkins,” a woman who needed reproductive health care, and made an appointment for the morning of Oct. 22, 2020, according to a federal indictment obtained by HuffPost.
She and eight other protesters met in D.C. on the day of the appointment, according to the indictment, and gathered in the hallway and stairwell outside of the clinic’s front door. A staff member opened the doors to patients with scheduled appointments, and members of the group forced their way through the doors and into the waiting room, the indictment said. One nurse stumbled as a result and sprained her ankle.
According to the indictment, Handy instructed other protesters to move the chairs to block the doors to the clinic’s treatment area. There, they tied themselves together with chains and rope.
One patient attempted to use an employee entrance to reach the treatment area, but was blocked by Handy and others. One of the protesters, Jonathan Darnel, was outside the clinic, livestreaming the demonstration on Facebook.
“We have people intervening physically with their bodies to prevent women from entering the clinic to murder their children,” Darnel said, per the indictment.
Handy was arrested in March 2022. That same day, D.C. police found five fetuses at her home, CBS affiliate WUSA reported at the time. She addressed the police findings in an April press conference, saying that a medical waste worker had allowed her and Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising founder Terrisa Bukovinac to seize 115 fetuses from a medical waste collector.
The two claimed that the driver willingly handed the box of fetuses over and Handy wanted to give the remains “a proper burial and a funeral.”
Bukovinac said she and Handy brought the remains back to Handy’s apartment. She said she believed that 110 of the fetuses were aborted during the first trimester of pregnancy, and that the five fetal remains police found were “late-term” or “nearly full-term.”
The medical waste company, Curtis Bay Medical Services, denied the women’s account in a statement to The New York Times, saying the driver delivered all of the packages to an incineration facility.
No charges were ever filed against Handy in connection with the fetal remains, and their discovery was not mentioned in her FACE Act case.
Handy’s pardon comes days after attorneys for the Thomas More Society, a conservative Catholic legal group, submitted a formal request to the Trump administration earlier this month to pardon 21 “peaceful pro-life Americans.”
In a statement posted on their website following the pardon, Peter Breen, the organization’s vice president and head of litigation, urged Congress to repeal the FACE Act.
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“Today is a new day for the pardoned pro-life advocates who have suffered FBI raids, federal prosecutions, and severe punishment for peacefully and courageously witnessing for life,” Breen stated.