• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Catholic Review

Catholic Review

Inspiring the Archdiocese of Baltimore

Menu
  • Home
  • News
        • Local News
        • World News
        • Vatican News
        • Obituaries
        • Featured Video
        • En Español
        • Sports News
        • Official Clergy Assignments
        • Schools News
  • Commentary
        • Contributors
          • Question Corner
          • George Weigel
          • Elizabeth Scalia
          • Michael R. Heinlein
          • Effie Caldarola
          • Guest Commentary
        • CR Columnists
          • Archbishop William E. Lori
          • Rita Buettner
          • Christopher Gunty
          • George Matysek Jr.
          • Mark Viviano
          • Father Joseph Breighner
          • Father Collin Poston
          • Robyn Barberry
          • Hanael Bianchi
          • Amen Columns
  • Entertainment
        • Events
        • Movie & Television Reviews
        • Arts & Culture
        • Books
        • Recipes
  • About Us
        • Contact Us
        • Our History
        • Meet Our Staff
        • Photos to own
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
        • CR Media platforms
        • Electronic Edition
  • Advertising
  • Shop
        • Purchase Photos
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
        • Magazine Subscriptions
        • Archdiocesan Directory
  • CR Radio
        • CR Radio
        • Protagonistas de Fe
  • News Tips
  • Subscribe
Activists Lauren Handy, left, and Terrisa Bukovinac chant slogans against legal abortion outside the Supreme Court in Washington Dec. 10, 2021. Lawyers for Handy, a Catholic pro-life activist facing a lengthy prison term for violating the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, are seeking to halt the destruction of the bodies of five unborn babies that Handy recovered from a Washington abortion clinic in 2022 as "proof of illegal abortions." (OSV News photo/Sarah Silbiger, Reuters)

Jailed Catholic activist’s attorney calls for Congress to investigate 5 aborted babies’ fate

February 12, 2024
By Kurt Jensen
OSV News
Filed Under: Feature, News, Respect Life, World News

Share
Share on Facebook
Share
Share this
Pin
Pin this
Share
Share on LinkedIn

WASHINGTON (OSV News) — Lawyers for Catholic pro-life activist Lauren Handy, who is facing a lengthy prison term for violating the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, are seeking to halt the destruction of the bodies of five unborn babies that Handy recovered from a Washington abortion clinic in 2022.

In a letter to Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Martin Cannon, senior counsel for the Chicago-based Thomas More Society, asked Jordan to help stop the scheduled destruction of the remains and investigate their abortion deaths as evidence of a federal crime.

Lawyers for Catholic pro-life activist Lauren Handy, who is facing a lengthy prison term for violating the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, have written a letter to Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, calling for a congressional investigation into the fate of five unborn babies whose bodies Handy recovered from a Washington abortion clinic in 2022. (OSV News/Evelyn Hockstein, Reuters)

“I feel strongly that a congressional investigation is imperative here,” Cannon wrote.

Handy recovered the remains of the unborn babies from a medical waste truck driver outside Washington Surgi-Clinic and believed they were the result of full-term abortions.

In the letter, Cannon asserted that “the age and condition of the deceased newborns raise serious questions about whether they were legally aborted,” and the body of evidence makes it “more likely than not that some babies” at the facility are “in fact born alive and left to die.”

Handy was convicted Aug. 29 under the FACE Act for her role in leading the Oct. 22, 2020, “lock and block” clinic blockade of the Washington Surgi-Clinic, which was livestreamed over Facebook. The last of the 10 defendants was convicted Nov. 16.

Adopted in 1994, the FACE Act imposes serious penalties on those convicted of “violent, threatening, damaging, and obstructive conduct” that interferes with access to health care providers. While it has often been applied to abortion clinics, the Justice Department is also using it to prosecute attacks on pregnancy help centers, charging four people in January 2023 under the FACE Act for vandalizing Florida pregnancy resource centers and intimidating their staff.

Jailed in Alexandria, Va., Handy and her fellow convicted activists face up to 11 years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine up to $250,000 each. Sentencing is expected this spring.

Handy gained international attention from an April 2022 press conference where she revealed that she had recovered the corpses of the five unborn children in the prior month — which she had stored in a refrigerator — from a box of 115 fetal bodies obtained from a medical waste truck at Washington Surgi-Clinic.

The five bodies appeared to be from late-stage abortions, and were then given to the District of Columbia’s medical examiner in the hopes of determining whether any laws were violated. But no autopsies were performed.

The rest received a burial presided over by a Catholic priest.

Read More Respect Life

Trump administration moves to reinstate VA health policy fully excluding abortion

three parent embryos

Catholic bioethicist raises ethical concerns with ‘three parent embryos’

Planned Parenthood defunding remains in question amid legal challenges

Ireland’s abortion rates rise 62 percent over 5 years; Catholic advocates call it ‘a tragedy’

Judge blocks defunding of some, but not all, Planned Parenthood groups

Is NFP finally breaking into medical schools?

Copyright © 2024 OSV News

Print Print

Share
Share on Facebook
Share
Share this
Pin
Pin this
Share
Share on LinkedIn

Primary Sidebar

Kurt Jensen

Click here to view all posts from this author

For the latest news delivered twice a week via email or text message, sign up to receive our free enewsletter.

| MOST POPULAR |

  • St. Bernardine Choir celebrates 50 years of song, spirit and community

  • The three questions young people asked Pope Leo XIV — and his answers

  • The Fantastic Four: First Steps Movie Review: ‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps’

  • Sister Miriam Jansen, former director of international programs at Notre Dame of Maryland, dies at 86

  • Mount St. Mary’s launches new physician assistant program

| Latest Local News |

Father Donio receives Knights’ highest award for work as chaplain

Mount St. Mary’s launches new physician assistant program

Radio Interview: The Vatican Observatory

Sister Rita Ann Naughton, I.H.M., dies at 88

St. Bernardine Choir celebrates 50 years of song, spirit and community

| Latest World News |

Pope calls for nuclear disarmament, real commitment to peace

Pope visits teen who fell ill during Jubilee of Youth, prays with family

Journey together, seek real encounters, pope advises young people

Indian nuns released on conditional bail; advocates, superiors call their arrest ‘unlawful’

Irish lay missionary, child among several kidnapped from orphanage in Haiti

| Catholic Review Radio |

CatholicReview · Catholic Review Radio

Footer

Our Vision

Real Life. Real Faith. 

Catholic Review Media communicates the Gospel and its impact on people’s lives in the Archdiocese of Baltimore and beyond.

Our Mission

Catholic Review Media provides intergenerational communications that inform, teach, inspire and engage Catholics and all of good will in the mission of Christ through diverse forms of media.

Contact

Catholic Review
320 Cathedral Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
443-524-3150
mail@CatholicReview.org

 

Social Media

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Recent

  • The popes at Tor Vergata: From John Paul II’s vision to Leo’s witness
  • Pope calls for nuclear disarmament, real commitment to peace
  • Pope visits teen who fell ill during Jubilee of Youth, prays with family
  • Journey together, seek real encounters, pope advises young people
  • Indian nuns released on conditional bail; advocates, superiors call their arrest ‘unlawful’
  • Father Donio receives Knights’ highest award for work as chaplain
  • Irish lay missionary, child among several kidnapped from orphanage in Haiti
  • Faith’s family tree
  • West Virginia bishop warns on immigration: ‘The final judge of our actions is God’

Search

Membership

Catholic Media Assocation

Maryland-Delaware-DC Press Association

The Associated Church Press

© 2025 CATHOLIC REVIEW MEDIA, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

en Englishes Spanish
en en