Authorities found five fetuses in the Washington, D.C., home of an anti-abortion activist, Lauren Handy, on Wednesday.
After receiving a tip about “potential bio-hazard material,” police entered the home, said a statement from Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department. Handy replied, “people will freak out when they hear.” when she was asked by a reporter what was inside her house.
The D.C. Office of the Chief Medical Examiner has collected the fetuses, and the investigation about the details is still ongoing, according to the police’s statement.
According to a press release from the U.S. Department of Justice, earlier this week, Handy, 28, was amongst nine anti-abortion protesters indicted on charges of invading an abortion clinic and blocking its doors in October 2020.
According to the DOJ release, the indictment said Handy and the other protesters “engaged in a conspiracy to create a blockade at the reproductive health care clinic to prevent the clinic from providing, and patients from receiving, reproductive health services” by blocking the clinic doors with “their bodies, furniture, chains, and ropes,” according to the DOJ release.
Handy was accused of orchestrating the blockade. Once it got started, the incident was livestreamed on Facebook by another alleged participant, said the DOJ.
The release added that the defendants could face up to 11 years in prison with three years of supervised release and a fine of as much as $350,000 if found guilty of their charges of conspiracy against rights, and violating the FACE Act.
Per WUSA, Handy was also charged with a felony in 2019 after allegedly resisting arrest at a Michigan abortion clinic protest, in addition to the 2020 protest. However, that charge was later lessened to misdemeanor trespassing. Reportedly Handy has also been a part of other protests around the Washington, D.C. area.
Handy founded the anti-abortion group Mercy Missions. She spoke on the nearly 500 “saves” or abortions that she stopped in a 2017 interview with Eternal Word Television Network. She had a “Saint Paul moment,” said Handy, four years before when other anti-abortion friends brought her to pray in front of an abortion clinic.
“I knew I could no longer have a normal life knowing that babies were being systematically killed,” she told the Catholic network.
The finding at Handy’s home occurs as abortion rights continue to be a popular topic. The issue of abortion has been a source of controversy, with some protesters taking extreme measures to get their point across.
According to Newsweek, a Florida bill prohibiting terminating pregnancy after 15 weeks has sparked debate. In a report, Human Rights Watch called the state’s abortion legislation, which Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis is expected to sign into law, “cruel and dangerous.”
“Being denied access to an abortion can have serious and lasting consequences for a pregnant person’s health and well-being,” it said. “For survivors of violence, denial of abortion care may amount to torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment under international human rights law.”
