Lauren Handy

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Lauren Handy
Lauren Handy protesting capital punishment in 2022 (cropped).jpg
Handy in 2022 protesting capital punishment
NationalityAmerican
CitizenshipUnited States
OccupationAnti-abortion activist
Criminal statusPardoned
Conviction(s) Violation of Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (18 U.S.C. § 248)
Criminal penalty57 months in prison; 3 years of supervised release

Lauren Handy is an American anti-abortion activist.

Contents

On October 22, 2020, Handy and four others from the Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising blocked access to an abortion clinic in Washington, D.C. She and the other protesters used their bodies, chains, ropes, and furniture to block the doors. In 2022, Washington DC police found the remains of 5 fetuses at Handy's apartment. She was arrested, and in May 2024, she was sentenced to 57 months in prison and three years of supervised release. On January 23, 2025, President Donald Trump issued a pardon to Handy and her nine co-defendants.

Early life

Handy grew up as a Southern Baptist. Her father is a painter. She was molested as a child by a non-family member. [1]

She attended Central Virginia Community College with the intent of working in a museum as an art historian. [1] [2] While there, she was both pro-life and agnostic. A student at nearby Liberty University invited her to go sidewalk counseling. Handy was moved by the experience of seeing women walking into an abortion clinic, and started to attend church several days a week. [2] Six weeks later she skipped her final exams, dropped out of school, sold all her belongings, and moved to California to become a full-time activist with Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust. [1] [2]

She has lived with several congregations of the Missionaries of Charity, including one in Haiti, where she worked in a hospice. [1] [2]

Activism

Handy is an anarcho-mutualist and strictly opposed to abortion. [2] [3] She believes abortion is an act of violence. [1]

Handy has been involved with a number of activist organizations. [3] Handy has been in a leadership role of the Red Rose Rescue movement since its founding. [3] As a sidewalk counselor, Handy employs an LGBT+ inclusive message and has been to more than 100 abortion clinics in more than 32 states. [3] [2] Handy is currently the Director of Activism for the Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising. [4]

She has been arrested more than 30 times during her activism. [3] [2] [ non-primary source needed ]

2019 Flint Township incident

In 2019, Handy and four others were charged with felony resisting arrest, misdemeanor trespass and disturbing the peace after an incident at an abortion clinic in Flint Township, Michigan. The protestors entered the Women's Center of Flint, handed roses to women in the waiting room, sang songs and refused to leave, forcing police to carry them from the business. [5] Handy ultimately spent four days in jail. [1]

2020 Washington, DC incident

On October 22, 2020, Handy and four others from the Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising blocked access to an abortion clinic in Washington, D.C. [1] [6] [7] Handy made an appointment at the clinic under a fake name. [6] [7] Once inside, she and the other protesters used their bodies, chains, ropes, and furniture to block the doors. [6] [7] The protest was livestreamed on Facebook. [6] In 2024, she was arrested and convicted for violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act based on this incident. [8] [9]

2021 Alexandria incident

In November 2021, Handy and five others entered the waiting room of the Alexandria Women’s Health Clinic. Once inside, they began occupying the building, handing out roses to women and advocating against abortion. Handy was sentenced to 30 days in jail for trespass. [10] [11]

Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising claimed five women chose not to have abortions as a result of the protest. [4]

2022 fetal remains incident

On March 30, 2022, Washington DC police found the remains of 5 fetuses at Handy's apartment. [12]

Handy and fellow activist Terrisa Bukovinac stated that they were among 115 fetuses they had obtained on March 25, 2022, from a medical waste transportation company outside of the Washington Surgi-Clinic. According to Bukovinac, the women went to the clinic to perform what they call a “pink rose rescue” when they noticed a Curtis Bay Medical Waste Services truck outside. The women say they approached the driver of the truck and told him the packages he was transporting might contain fetal remains, and asked if he could hand over a box. The driver purportedly complied when they informed him they would give the remains "a proper burial and a funeral". Curtis Bay Medical Waste Services has refuted this claim, stating it does not transport fetal remains by company policy and has also denied that any package was ever handed over. [13]

Handy and Bukovinac alleged that inside the box were 110 fetal remains that were the result of first trimester abortions, which were buried in a private cemetery with the help of a Catholic priest [14] , along with the 5 others police had discovered in Handy's apartment. Handy and Bukovinac believed these 5 to be the result of third trimester partial-birth abortions, a procedure outlawed in 2003 by the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. The activists said that their lawyer had asked the police to retrieve the remaining fetuses from Handy's home as evidence of violation of federal law. [15] [16]

While Bukovinac and Handy have called for a full autopsy of the fetuses, the D.C. Medical Examiner’s Office has said the five fetuses recovered from Handy’s home all appear to have been aborted in accordance with D.C. law, and that while there were no plans to conduct an autopsy, an inquiry was ongoing as to the origin of the remains and how they were obtained. [13] [17]

Handy was never charged with a crime in relation to the incident, [6] [7] but her landlord terminated her lease. [2]

Arrest and conviction

In response to her 2020 DC incident, Handy and others were convicted of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act. [6] [18] On May 14, 2024, she was sentenced to 57 months in prison and three years of supervised release. [8]

Her defense lawyer argued that she was only a genuine activist who was simply involved in an act of peaceful, non-violent protest. The prosecution disputed this characterization using testimonial and surveillance footage as evidence. [8] [9]

One patient testified that she came to the clinic to abort a pregnancy which had a defect incompatible with life. She testified that she collapsed in pain whilst her husband begged Handy and her compatriates to let her into the clinic. [9] Surveillance footage was also entered into evidence showing another patient attempting to break in through a window to bypass the blockade, as well as showing a clinic employee being knocked down into the ground and sustaining a severe knee sprain. [8]

The judge, Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, sided with the prosecution, and assessed that "The law does not protect violent and obstructive conduct". [8] Kollar-Kotelly did however agree with the defense lawyer's argument that Handy was a principled activist and so reduced her sentence from 63-78 months to 57 months plus three years probation, during which she could not come within 1000 feet of a reproductive health clinic without authorization. [8]

On January 23, 2025, President Donald Trump issued a pardon to Handy and her nine co-defendants. [19]

Personal life

Handy is a queer convert to Catholicism. [2] [3] [4]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anti-abortion violence</span> Violence committed against individuals and organizations that provide abortion services

Anti-abortion violence is violence committed against individuals and organizations that perform abortions or provide abortion counseling. Incidents of violence have included destruction of property, including vandalism; crimes against people, including kidnapping, stalking, assault, attempted murder, and murder; and crimes affecting both people and property, as well as arson and terrorism, such as bombings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United States anti-abortion movement</span> Movement in the United States opposing abortion

The United Statesanti-abortion movement, also called the pro-life movement or right-to-life movement, is a movement in the United States that opposes induced abortion and advocates for the protection of fetuses. Advocates support legal prohibition or restriction on ethical, moral, or religious grounds, arguing that human life begins at conception and that the human zygote, embryo or fetus is a person and therefore has a right to life. The anti-abortion movement includes a variety of organizations, with no single centralized decision-making body. There are diverse arguments and rationales for the anti-abortion stance. Some allow for some permissible abortions, including therapeutic abortions, in exceptional circumstances such as incest, rape, severe fetal defects, or when the woman's health is at risk.

Foeticide, or feticide, is the act of killing a fetus, or causing a miscarriage. Definitions differ between legal and medical applications, whereas in law, feticide frequently refers to a criminal offense, in medicine the term generally refers to a part of an abortion procedure in which a provider intentionally induces fetal demise to avoid the chance of an unintended live birth, or as a standalone procedure in the case of selective reduction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Abby Johnson (activist)</span> American activist and author (born 1980)

Abby Johnson is an American anti-abortion activist who previously worked at Planned Parenthood as a clinic director, but resigned in October 2009. She states that she resigned after watching an abortion on ultrasound. The veracity of her account and the details and motivation for her conversion have been challenged by investigative reporters, as medical records contradict some of her claims.

The Texas Alliance for Life is an anti-abortion lobbying organization in the State of Texas. The group opposes "the advocacy and practice of abortion ." The group also opposes euthanasia and "all forms of assisted suicide." It is based in Austin, Texas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anti-abortion movements</span> Movement that believes abortion should be illegal

Anti-abortion movements, also self-styled as pro-life movements, are involved in the abortion debate advocating against the practice of abortion and its legality. Many anti-abortion movements began as countermovements in response to the legalization of elective abortions.

In 2015, an anti-abortion organization named the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) released several videos that had been secretly recorded. Members of the CMP posed as representatives of a biotechnology company in order to gain access to both meetings with abortion providers and abortion facilities. The videos showed how abortion providers made fetal tissue available to researchers, although no problems were found with the legality of the process. All of the videos were found to be altered, according to analysis by Fusion GPS and its co-founder Glenn R. Simpson, a former investigative reporter for The Wall Street Journal. The CMP disputed this finding, attributing the alterations to the editing out of "bathroom breaks and waiting periods". CMP had represented a longer version of the tapes as being "complete", as well as a shorter, edited version. The analysis by Fusion GPS concluded that the longer version was also edited, with skips and missing footage. Nonetheless, the videos attracted widespread media coverage; after the release of the first video, conservative lawmakers in Congress singled out Planned Parenthood and began to push bills that would strip the organization of federal family planning funding. No such attempts by Congress to cut federal family planning money from Planned Parenthood have become law. Conservative politicians in several states have also used this as an opportunity to cut or attempt to cut family planning funding at the state level.

Abortion in Alabama is illegal. Historically, Alabama's abortion laws have evolved from strict regulations in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to a period of liberalization following the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion nationwide. However, Alabama has consistently enacted legislation aimed at restricting access to abortion.

Abortion in Illinois is legal up to the point of fetal viability. Laws about abortion dated to the early 1800s in Illinois; the first criminal penalties related to abortion were imposed in 1827, and abortion itself became illegal in 1867. As hospitals set up barriers in the 1950s, the number of therapeutic abortions declined. Following Roe v. Wade in 1973, Illinois passed a number of restrictions on abortion, many of which have subsequently been repealed. Illinois updated its existing abortion laws in June 2019. The state has seen a decline in the number of abortion clinics over the years, going from 58 in 1982 to 47 in 1992 to 24 in 2014.

Abortion in Arkansas is illegal except when it is necessary to save the life of the pregnant individual. Doctors determined to have performed an abortion face up to 10 years in prison and fines up to $100,000.

Abortion in the District of Columbia is legal at all stages of pregnancy. In 1971, in United States v. Vuitch, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a law saying abortion was allowed for health reasons, which include "psychological and physical well-being". Consequently, the District of Columbia became a destination for women seeking abortions starting that year.

As of 2024, abortion is generally illegal in Indiana. It is only legal in cases involving fatal fetal abnormalities, to preserve the life and physical health of the mother, and in cases of rape or incest up to 10 weeks of pregnancy. Previously abortion in Indiana was legal up to 20 weeks; a near-total ban that was scheduled to take effect on August 1, 2023, was placed on hold due to further legal challenges, but is set to take place, after the Indiana Supreme Court denied an appeal by the ACLU, and once it certifies a previous ruling that an abortion ban doesn't violate the state constitution. In the wake of the 2022 Dobbs Supreme Court ruling, abortion in Indiana remained legal despite Indiana lawmakers voting in favor of a near-total abortion ban on August 5, 2022. Governor Eric Holcomb signed this bill into law the same day. The new law became effective on September 15, 2022. However, on September 22, 2022, Special Judge Kelsey B. Hanlon of the Monroe County Circuit Court granted a preliminary injunction against the enforcement of the ban. Her ruling allows the state's previous abortion law, which allows abortions up to 20 weeks after fertilization with exceptions for rape and incest, to remain in effect.

Abortion in Michigan is legal throughout pregnancy. A state constitutional amendment to explicitly guarantee abortion rights was placed on the ballot in 2022 as Michigan Proposal 22–3; it passed with 57 percent of the vote, adding the right to abortion and contraceptive use to the Michigan Constitution. The amendment largely prevents the regulation of abortion before fetal viability, unless said regulations are to protect the individual seeking an abortion, and it also makes it unconstitutional to make laws restricting abortions which would protect the life and health, physical and/or mental, of the pregnant individual seeking abortion.

Abortion in Montana is legal up to the point of fetal viability. The number of abortion clinics in Montana has fluctuated over the years, with twenty in 1982, twelve in 1992, eight providers of which seven were clinics in 2011, and five clinics in 2014. There were four clinics from 2015 to February 2018 when All Families Healthcare clinic in Whitefish reopened. There were 1,690 legal abortions in 2014, and 1,611 in 2015.

Abortion in New York is legal, although abortions after the 24th week of pregnancy require a physician's approval. Abortion was legalized up to the 24th week of pregnancy in New York in 1970, three years before it was legalized for the entire United States with the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade in 1973. Roe v. Wade was later overturned in 2022 by the Supreme Court in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization. The Reproductive Health Act, passed in 2019 in New York, further allows abortions past the 24th week of pregnancy if a pregnant woman's life or physical or mental health is at risk, or if the fetus is not viable. However, since these exceptions are not defined by the law, and the law carries no criminal penalties for the pregnant individual, abortion is effectively legal throughout pregnancy.

Abortion in South Carolina is illegal after detection of a "fetal heartbeat", usually around 6 weeks from the woman's last menstrual period, when many women are not yet aware that they are pregnant. On May 25, 2023, Governor Henry McMaster signed a 6-week ban, and it took effect immediately. The ban was blocked in court the next day but was reinstated by the South Carolina Supreme Court on August 23.

Abortion in Tennessee is illegal from fertilization except to "prevent the death of the pregnant woman or to prevent serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman". Tennessee is one of four states which prohibit abortion in their state constitution; alongside Alabama, Louisiana, and West Virginia.

Abortion in California is legal up to the point of fetal viability. An abortion ban was in place by 1900, and by 1950, it was a criminal offense for a woman to have an abortion. In 1962, the American Law Institute published their model penal code, as it applied to abortions, with three circumstances where they believed a physician could justifiably perform an abortion, and California adopted a version of this code. In 2002, the California State Legislature passed a law guaranteeing women the right to have an abortion "prior to viability of the fetus, or when the abortion is necessary to protect the life or health of the woman". In 2022, 67% of California voters approved Proposition 1, which amended the Constitution of California to explicitly protect the right to abortion and contraception.

Abortion in Florida is generally illegal after six weeks from the woman's last menstrual period, This law came into effect in May 2024, being approved by Republican Governor Ron DeSantis following its passage in the Florida House of Representatives and the Florida Senate, with only Republican state legislators supporting. Additionally, pregnant women are generally required to make two visits to a medical facility 24 hours apart to be able to obtain an abortion, in a law approved by Republican Governor Rick Scott in 2015.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Terrisa Bukovinac</span> American anti-abortion activist (born 1981)

Terrisa Lin Bukovinac is an American anti-abortion activist. A member of the Democratic Party, she formerly served as president of Democrats for Life of America and was a candidate for the Democratic nomination for president of the United States in the 2024 United States presidential election, with the intent of running a campaign to outlaw abortion. She is a subject of the 2022 documentary film Battleground which profiles three leading women in the anti-abortion movement.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Resnick, Sofia (August 30, 2023). "Why Were There Fetuses in Her Refrigerator? How a radical abortion opponent ended up dumpster-diving for remains". The Cut.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 "Lauren Handy: 'These children were murdered'". The Pillar. April 5, 2022. Retrieved November 22, 2023.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Our Team". Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising. Retrieved November 22, 2023.
  4. 1 2 3 "Lauren Handy jailed as pro-life 'rescue' movement returns". The Pillar. July 12, 2022. Retrieved November 22, 2023.
  5. ↑ Fonger, Ron (August 26, 2019). "Judge lets felony charges stick against Flint Township abortion clinic protesters". Michigan Live. Retrieved January 24, 2025.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Patil, Anushka (August 30, 2023). "Anti-Abortion Activist Who Kept Fetuses Is Convicted in Clinic Blockade". The New York Times. Retrieved November 22, 2023.
  7. 1 2 3 4 Sherman, Carter (August 29, 2023). "US anti-abortion activist who kept fetal remains convicted of blockading clinic". The Guardian. Retrieved November 22, 2023.
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Fischer, Jordan (May 14, 2024). "Anti-abortion activist Lauren Handy sentenced to more than 4 years in prison for orchestrating DC clinic invasion". wusa9.com. Retrieved May 14, 2024.
  9. 1 2 3 Fisher, Jordan (August 17, 2023). "'Please let her go' | Husband begged anti-abortion activists to let wife into clinic after she collapsed in pain, jury hears". WUSA9].
  10. ↑ Boorstein, Michelle (July 12, 2022). "Antiabortion activists sentenced for trespassing at Alexandria clinic" . Retrieved January 24, 2025.
  11. ↑ Salai, Sean (November 17, 2021). "Abortion protesters arrested, fined for occupying Alexandria clinic". Washington Times .
  12. ↑ Fischer, Jordan; Leshan, Bruce; Baca, Nathan; Phillips, Susan (March 31, 2022). "'People would freak out when they heard' 5 fetuses discovered in house where anti-abortion activist was staying". WUSA9. WUSA-TV. Retrieved January 25, 2025.
  13. 1 2 Leshan, Bruce; Baca, Nathan; Fischer, Jordan; Phillips, Susan (April 5, 2022). "Lauren Handy's anti-abortion group now claims it took 115 fetuses from outside DC clinic". WUSA9. WUSA-TV. Retrieved January 25, 2025.
  14. ↑ Boorstein, Michelle (April 25, 2022). "After a secret funeral for fetal remains, a priest faced a choice". The Washington Post. The Washington Post. Retrieved January 26, 2025.
  15. ↑ Lampen, Claire (April 6, 2022). "5 Fetuses Found Inside Anti-Abortion Activist's Home". The Cut. Vox Media, LLC. Retrieved January 25, 2025.
  16. ↑ Patil, Anushka (August 30, 2023). "Anti-Abortion Activist Who Kept Fetuses Is Convicted in Clinic Blockade". The New York Times. The New York Times Company. Retrieved January 25, 2025.
  17. ↑ Boorstein, Michelle; Hermann, Peter (April 1, 2022). "D.C. Medical Examiner has no plans to autopsy fetuses removed from antiabortion activist's home, officials say". The Washington Post. The Washington Post. Retrieved January 25, 2025.
  18. ↑ "Office of Public Affairs | Six Defendants Convicted of Federal Civil Rights Conspiracy and Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act Offenses for Obstructing Access to Reproductive Health Services in Tennessee | United States Department of Justice". www.justice.gov. January 30, 2024.
  19. ↑ Fernando, Christine. "Trump pardons anti-abortion activists who blockaded clinic entrances". ABC News. Retrieved January 24, 2025.
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