Pro-lifer Joan Andrews Bell sentenced to 27 months in DC FACE Act case

WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) — Joan Andrews Bell was sentenced to 27 months in jail, community service, and a $125 fine on Wednesday, in the second batch of pro-life advocates convicted last year of blocking access to a scandal-plagued late-term abortion facility in the nation’s capital, a case criticized by pro-life leaders as an egregious example of Biden administration overreach.

On August 29, 2023, a D.C. jury found Lauren Handy, Will Goodman, Heather Idoni, Rosemary “Herb” Geraghty, and John Hinshaw guilty of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act and “conspiracy against rights.” The next month, Bell, Jean Marshall, and Jonathan Darnel were convicted of the same; Paulette Harlow’s conviction came in November.

Wednesday’s hearings, before U.S. District Judge for the District of Columbia Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, included Geraghty starting at 9 a.m., Darnel at 11 a.m., Marshall at 1:30 p.m., and Bell at 3 p.m.

As LifeSiteNews has extensively reported, the five activists stood trial for blocking access to the Washington Surgi-Clinic in downtown Washington, D.C., in a “traditional rescue” in October 2020. Pro-life “rescues,” of which there were many in the early days of the pro-life movement before the FACE Act became federal law, involve physically entering abortion centers and refusing to leave in an effort to convince women to choose life for their babies (Washington Surgi-Clinic is also where five late-term aborted babies were discovered who may have either been killed by illegal partial-birth abortion procedures or after live-birth).

Following the convictions, Handy and most of the co-defendants were immediately incarcerated while awaiting sentencing. Last month, the U.S. Justice Department filed sentencing memos calling for Handy to serve between 5.25 and 6.5 years in prison, near the high end of the sentencing guidelines, and for the rest of the defendants to serve a minimum of two years.

Bell was sentenced to 27 months and has already spent nine in jail, giving her 18 left to serve on top of her fine, which she says she will not pay.

On Tuesday, Handy was sentenced to serve four years, Hinshaw to one year, and Goodman to 18 months, all with the same $125 fine. Geraghty, Darnell, and Marshall were also sentenced Wednesday, to 27 months (18 left to serve), 34 months (25 left to serve), and 24 months (15 left to serve) respectively.

The cases are the latest in what pro-lifers condemn as a pattern of the pro-abortion Biden Department of Justice (DOJ) weaponizing the criminal justice system to crush its political enemies.

Since May 2022, when the U.S. Supreme Court’s intention to overturn Roe v. Wade was first leaked, “there have been at least 236 attacks on Catholic churches and at least 90 attacks on pro-life pregnancy centers,” the Daily Signal reports. Yet the DOJ “charged only pro-life activists with FACE Act violations in 2022, and has since charged only five individuals with violating the FACE Act by targeting pregnancy centers.” At the same time, it has zealously pursued incidents involving pro-lifers, from the D.C. defendants to Philadelphia sidewalk counselor and Catholic father of seven Mark Houck.

Several of the D.C. Nine have endured mistreatment while in custody above and beyond the charges and sentencing themselves. Heather Idoni, 59, was placed in prolonged solitary confinement for 22 days and deprived of sleep with the lights of her cell kept on continually. Jean Marshall, 74, was deprived of sufficient clothing and heat during extreme freezing winter cold, causing her to contract pneumonia which went untreated for three weeks, and was denied urgent hip surgery. Paulette Harlow, 75, was refused permission to attend Mass while under house arrest.

”If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his Lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep your's also. But all these things will they do unto you for my name's sake, because they know not him that sent me. If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloke for their sin. He that hateth me hateth my Father also.” - ‭‭John‬ ‭15‬:‭18‬-‭23‬ ‭KJV‬‬

As it was then, so it is now. The disciples faced imprisonment and persecution, most of them unto death. We are called to stand against evil men doing evil acts. I pray for these people who are striving to do what is right in standing in the gap to try to save innocent lives of babies from legalized slaughter.

Seems excessive. Charge her with trespassing, and resisting arrest. As long as they didn’t break in or try to kidnap women by force or threat of force, this is a free speech issue with minimal criminal element. The law should be struck down. Why are abortion clinics more protected than other businesses? If someone sat in a pay day loan shop to protest usury, they would get no bail release and plea it down to community service.

The Xiden regime is sending a message.

Your views will not be tolerated.

The sacrifices to Baal and Moloch will continue.

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