As befits an anti-abortion extremist, Media Research Center writer Tierin-Rose Mandelburg worked to whitewash fellow extremists who were arrested for interfering with patients at an abortion clinic. Mandelburg offered this bland summary of the case in a February 2023 post: “Lauren Handy and ten other defendants are on trial for supposedly ‘blocking’ access to an abortion clinic.” (The rest of her post was spent raging at a judge in the trial for those extremists for suggesting there might be a right to abortion in the Constitution: “This judge is simply trying to convince the court and the public that there’s some sort of constitutional loophole that federally protects abortion. There isn’t. End of story.”) In writing about the conviction of five of those activists in August 2023, Mandelburg showed that her “supposedly” equivocation was bogus, admitting they did in fact block access:
In October, 2020, five pro-life activists, Lauren Handy, Will Goodman, John Hinshaw, Heather Idoni and Herb Geraghty participated in the rescue action at the D.C. based abortion facility, Washington Surgi-Clinic (WSC).
On Tuesday, they were found guilty of violating the FACE Act.
The now-named “leader” of the group, Handy, made an appointment at the WSC under a fake name. When the clinic staff opened the door, a slew of pro-life activists emerged through the building’s emergency stairwell where they formed a blockade for roughly three hours, until authorities arrived. Supposedly the incident led to an altercation which left a clinic employee with an ankle injury.
As a result, prosecutors accused, and now charged, many in the group of violating the FACE Act which prohibits the use of physical force, threats of force or intentional damaging of property to prevent someone from obtaining or providing abortions.
According to Handy’s body-cam, Handy told officers she was there to “block the facility to prevent abortions,” but her attorney indicated that Handy had not physically blocked anyone or violated the FACE Act. A Facebook Live video documented the incident and one pro-life activist, Jonathan Darnel, was heard saying, “As long as they’re in there, no woman can go in to kill their children. We shall delay the murder of kids as long as we can in this building,” according to Life News.
Stilll, Mandelburg tried to whitewash Handy, insisting that “Handy was and is merely trying to fight for the lives of innocent kids. There’s not really much more to it.” She then whined that clinic employees werew thte real bad guys for fighting back against the interfering protesters:
Flash forward to now, the courtroom was heavily stacked against the pro-lifers. When the first trial began this month, it became abundantly clear that many of the potential jurors had previously donated to Planned Parenthood and took part in pro-abort marches.
As evidence emerged, Hinshaw’s attorney indicated that though the pro-lifers are on trial and being accused of violence, the only violence that took place was conducted by the clinic staff members, not the pro-lifers. One even wielded a broomstick towards the life affirmers, Life News reported.
Defendants insisted that the pro-lifers were not there to break any laws but rather “fight for the truth and for the lives of innocent children,” as Life News reported. Though the undercover video of Santangelo was submitted into evidence, Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly rejected it, calling it “gossip from propagandists” and insisted that it was “heavily edited.”
That was a reference to clinic operator Cesare Santangelo caught saying things on a secretly recorded video done by the anti-abortion extremists at Live Action.
Mandelburg concluded by arguing that anti-abortion extremists should be allowed to break the law with impunity: ‘It’s a shame how favored pro-aborts are in our justice system and this is just another example of how evident that is.”
A Feb. 7 post by Mandelburg focused on another act of extremism by Handy, in which she effectively went dumpster-diving outside that same clinic and claimed to have “discovered the remains of five dead preemie babies as well as the remains of over 100 pulverized remains of first-trimester babies,” whining that “the Department of Justice advised a Washington D.C. medical examiner to dispose of aborted baby bodies in over to hide criminal evidence.” No evidence of criminal activities was presented, and five of those fetuses remained stored in Handy’s refrigerator. Mandelburg spent a March 20 post touting how far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (whose name she misspelled) was helping to exploit the incident.
Whenb Handy received the full consequences of her crime, Mandelburg was there to whine about it in a May 15 post:
Lauren Handy, 30, was sentenced to 57 months in prison as well as three years probation on Tuesday for trying to save babies from abortion at an abortion facility back in 2020. The court however, deemed that Handy violated the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE Act).
On October 22, 2020, Handy, along with a number of other pro-life activists, was arrested for allegedly blocking access to the Washington Surgi abortion clinic in Washington, D.C. Prosecutors insist that Handy instructed other pro-lifers at the scene to link themselves together with locks and chains while they sang hymns and prayed for the moms and babies who were set up for abortions.
Mandelburg isn’t gelling the full story. We have to go to a real news organization for that, just as we did when WorldNetDaily whitewashed Handy’s offenses:
“Americans have been protesting in favor of and against abortion access for the better part of a century, and there may be nothing more American than these protests” over conflicting views of fundamental rights, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly said in handing down the penalty.
“But the law does not protect violence or obstructive conduct — nor should it,” Kollar-Kotelly continued. “That’s what you’re being punished for, not your views on abortion nor your very-American commitment to peaceful protest.”[…]
Handy and co-conspirators live-streamed a preplanned “lock-and-block” blockade that used force and physical obstructions to shut down the D.C. clinic on Oct. 22, 2020, Kollar-Kotelly said in summarizing trial evidence. Prosecutors said Handy was the leader of the group that orchestrated the blockade and recruited participants, arranged lodging and used a fake name to book an appointment. A nurse was injured and patients were traumatized in the incursion, including two women who begged to enter for treatment and one who suffered a medical emergency, the judge said.
“It was not peaceful, and it was not contemplated to be peaceful,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Sanjay Patel argued in a 90-minute sentencing hearing. The government sought a sentence at the high end of a 63- to 78-month range recommended by federal guidelines — up to 6½ years — based on Handy’s leadership role, obstructive conduct, the violence and victims in the case.[…]
The judge concluded that while Handy and her co-conspirators were entitled to have “very strong views about abortion,” she found it disheartening that they “showed no compassion or empathy to women patients who were human beings in pain and seeking medical care.”
Rather than tell the truth, Mandelburg complained that others told the truth:
The leftist media are describing Handy as some sort of villain and insist the 57 month jail sentenced isn’t sufficient.
Daily Beast called Handy a “zealot” who “harassed and directly denied health care access to at least two women who were seeking medical care” (medical “care” being abortions).
Similarly The Associated Press called Handy an “anti-abortion activist who led a clinic blockade.”
Mandelburg didn’t dispute the accuracy of those descriptions, or why accurately describing what Handy did makes those media outlets “leftist.”
When a fellow extremist was sentenced for taking part in the same blockade operation, Mandelburg groused in a June 3 post:
Paulette Harlow, 75, was arrested back in 2020 after praying outside of a Washington D.C. abortion clinic. Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly sentenced Harlow on May 31, deciding that she deserves to sit in jail for two full years.
[…]Harlow was arrested along with eight other pro-lifers outside of the clinic and was convicted under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act. The FACE Act prohibits “violent, threatening, damaging, and obstructive conduct intended to injure, intimidate, or interfere with the right to seek, obtain, or provide reproductive health services.”
Apparently praying and singing hymns is “violent” and “threatening.”
Mandelburg offered no evidence that “praying and singing hymns” was the only thing Harlow did. In fact, as prosecutors pointed out, Harlow as an active participant in “an elaborate conspiracy by 10 people to intentionally and forcibly block patients and workers from accessing a reproductive health clinic while streaming it live online.” Mandelburg made no mention of the nurse who was injured in the protest and the patients who suffered medical emergencies; apparently, in the view of Mandelburg and the other extremists, they were just collateral damage and deserved what they got.