The Patriot Post® · A Two-Tiered Miscarriage Against Life

A DC jury found five pro-life activists guilty of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act. The pro-life activists were led by 28-year-old Lauren Handy and are all members of a leftist (yes, that’s right) pro-life group named the Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising (PAAU).

Based upon its website, PAAU promotes hard-leftist political views such as anti-capitalism. The group states, “We’re committed to ending elective abortion no matter how long it takes.” It also says, “We’re committed to radical inclusivity while magnifying secular, leftist, and LGBTQIA+ identifying pro-life voices, especially those belonging to people of color.”

Admittedly, this group’s absolutist stance against elective abortion is admirable, no matter how problematic and ironically contradictory its other progressive political positions are. But inconsistency is the currency of the Left.

PAAU’s radical views don’t justify how the group is being treated by the court. Following the jury’s verdict, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly immediately ordered the defendants to be detained in jail to await their sentencing later this year. Each of the defendants faces prison sentences of up to 11 years and fines of up to $350,000.

These penalties are excessive given the fact that these pro-life activists did little other than engage in a sit-in protest in an abortion clinic. They chained or tied themselves to chairs inside the clinic’s lobby, sang hymns, prayed, and yelled out, “They are killing babies in there.” Obnoxious, yes, but 11 years and $350,000?

How often have we seen similar examples of leftist protesters using the exact same tactics and receiving a slap on the wrist, if that? Indeed, given the fact that these protesters are on the Left, one might assume they would enjoy similar easy treatment. But they don’t because they’ve dared to challenge one of the Democrats’ most sacred rites — elective abortion.

Following the verdict, PAAU stated: “Rescue CANNOT and will not be stopped. This case was an effort by the US government to isolate and intimidate Rescuers and anti-abortion people into believing they would face significant jail time for living in alignment with their pro-life values.”

This case has brought together strange bedfellows, as the leftist PAAU activists are being represented by a conservative Roman Catholic firm, the Thomas More Society. But when it comes to defending the lives of the pre-born, other political disagreements can be set aside.

Lauren Handy’s senior counsel, Thomas More’s Martin Cannon, expressed, “Ms. Handy has been condemned for her efforts to protect the lives of innocent preborn human beings, something she should never have been arrested for.”

Cannon added that they would appeal the decision and “will continue to defend those who fight for life against a Biden Department of Justice that seems intent on prosecuting those who decry abortion and present it as it is — the intentional killing of children in utero.”

There’s the biggest rub with the DOJ under Biden — a blatant engagement in two-tiered justice. Following the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade last summer, pro-life facilities and churches have been repeatedly attacked and vandalized, but the DOJ has focused almost all of its prosecutorial efforts against pro-life advocates. And this despite the fact that, as FBI Director Christopher Wray admitted last November, the lion’s share (70%) of abortion-related FBI cases involving attacks and threats of violence are against pro-life organizations.

When Republican Senator Mike Lee raised the issue of the giant disparity between the DOJ’s prosecution of pro-life advocates versus pro-abortion activists back in March, Attorney General Merrick Garland blamed it on the dark. “That is generally because those actions are taken with photography at the time during the daylight, seeing the person who did it it is quite easy,” Garland told Lee. “Those who are attacking the pregnancy resource centers … are doing this at night, in the dark.”

The fact of the matter is, the Biden administration has made it its goal to do everything in its power to promote abortion, and this case is simply the latest example of this agenda at work.