The Department of Justice announced on Friday that 75-year-old Paula Paulette Harlow was sentenced to two years in prison for violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act by taking part in a “conspiracy” to block pregnant women from entering an abortion clinic in Washington, D.C.
Harlow of Kingston, Massachusetts, was the final defendant to be sentenced in the DOJ’s prosecution of nine other “co-conspirators,” most of whom also received sentences of at least two years. Harlow’s sentencing also comes months after The Daily Wire reported that six pro-life demonstrators were found guilty and face up to 10.5 years in prison after the Biden administration charged them over a peaceful protest at a Tennessee abortion facility in 2021.
“According to the evidence, on October 22, 2020, [Lauren] Handy – along with her co-conspirators Jonathan Darnel, John Hinshaw, William Goodman, Jean Marshall, Joan Bell, Herb Geraghty, Heather Idoni, and Paula Harlow, among others – forcefully entered the clinic and set about blockading two clinic doors using their bodies, furniture, chains, and ropes. Once the blockade was established, they live-streamed their activities,” the DOJ said. “The evidence also showed that the defendants violated the FACE Act by using a physical obstruction to injure, intimidate and interfere with the clinic’s employees and a patient, because they were providing or obtaining reproductive health services.”
Handy, who was also recently sued by the Biden administration for violating the FACE Act at two abortion facilities in Ohio, was sentenced on May 14 to almost five years in prison and three years of supervised release for her role in the demonstration at the D.C. abortion clinic. Seventy-six-year-old Joan Bell was sentenced to 27 months in prison and Jean Marshall, 74, was also slapped with a two-year sentence.
New Yorker Jay Smith, 34, was the only defendant to plead guilty in the trial and was sentenced to 10 months in prison and three years of supervised release.
The D.C. abortion clinic demonstration was investigated by the FBI’s Washington Field Office with help from the Metropolitan Police Department and the FBI’s Pittsburgh Field Office, the DOJ said. President Joe Biden has come down hard on pro-life demonstrators during his first term in office while promising to defend abortion.
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The FACE Act has been used numerous times by Biden’s DOJ to go after pro-lifers. The act was signed by President Bill Clinton 30 years ago, but has recently been scrutinized by some Republicans, such as Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX), who have called for the FACE Act to be repealed, arguing that it is being “weaponized against normal, everyday Americans across the political spectrum.”
Leif Le Mahieu contributed to this report.
