According to Terrisa Bukovinac, the founder of PAAU, the conviction signifies “that in America it is illegal to peacefully and nonviolently protest infanticide.”
These rescuers were guarding infants that Cesare Santangelo, a notorious abortionist, had killed while they were still alive. But Biden’s federal agents didn’t go after the violent offender, according to Bukovinac. No, they were looking for peaceful, nonviolent activists because we believe that practicing both nonviolence and civil disobedience helps us develop.
A pro-life activist named Bernadette Patel who is acquainted with a number of the defendants told CNA that the convictions were “an egregious error on the part of the justice system.”
According to Patel, “[the judge] completely stacked the jury pool with individuals who identified as ‘pro-choice’ and acknowledged that they had participated in pro-abortion protests and donations to Planned Parenthood.”
in the US
The court transcripts will demonstrate that she functioned as a second prosecutor in the case because of her chilly and acrimonious behavior toward the defense. We believe that if the appeal is successful, we will finally receive justice, but that procedure is unreliable and takes a long time.
According to Patel, the Department of Justice under the Biden administration will “stop at nothing to prosecute civilians engaged in peaceful, protected civil disobedience.”
Pro-life leader in the Washington, D.C., area Michael New urged people to pray for the five people convicted.
New wrote on X, “The D.C. pro-life rescuers… have all been taken into federal custody.” “Until they are sentenced, they will remain in custody. Although I am not an attorney, I have been told that this is unparalleled in the history of rescue.
In a statement opposing the choice, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America claimed that the five activists should be “recognized for their heroism” and charged the Biden administration with using “the full power of the federal government against them.”
In exposing the atrocities of late-term abortion occurring nationwide and in D.C., where there are no restrictions on abortion up to birth, they have performed a crucial public service, according to the statement. They have preserved the memory of Cesare Santangelo’s victims, who included five fully developed infants who were either delivered alive and left to perish or slain in illegal partial birth abortions before being put in a box and burned as “medical waste.”
Live Action President Lila Rose declared in a statement that the trial was a “sham with a completely biased pro-abortion judge who has made a mockery of our justice system.”
(The story is extended below.)
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“Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly refused to admit into evidence the Live Action investigation video showing the abortionist Cesare Santangelo, in his own words, stating his willingness to let a living child outside of the womb die from neglect and lack of medical attention,” Rose claimed.
In addition, Rose said, “this is the same judge who recently stated that the 13th Amendment’s prohibition on “involuntary servitude” may give a right to abortion, contrasting the wonder of pregnancy and motherhood with the horror of slavery.
“I demand genuine justice for these activists working to end the barbaric killing of abortion,” said one activist who has been wrongfully convicted.
Regarding the activities in October 2020 at the Cesare Santangelo abortion clinic, five additional people were accused. One, Jay Smith, age 32, has already entered a guilty plea. The trials for the other four defendants, Joan Bell, 74, Paulette Harlow, 73, Jean Marshall, 72, and 40-year-old Jonathan Darnel, will start the following Wednesday, Sept. 6.
The National Catholic Register’s Tyler Arnold is a staff reporter. He previously worked at The Center Square and has had articles published by the Associated Press, National Review, The American Conservative, and The Federalist, among other publications.
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