“D.C. Nine” group of jailed pro-life activists could be sentenced up to 11 years in prison

05/10/2024 / By Kevin Hughes

The “D.C. Nine” group of jailed pro-life activists are set to be sentenced to up to 11 years in prison each in the nation’s capital on May 14, 15 and 17.

The nine individuals are Joan Andrews Bell, Jonathan Darnel, Herb Geraghty, Will Goodman, Lauren Handy, John Hinshaw, Paulette Harlow, Heather Idoni and Jean Marshall. Pro-abortion Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the District Court for the District of Columbia is set to charge them with up to 11 years in prison for violating the FACE Act and “conspiracy against rights.”

Eight of the nine defendants are being detained in federal custody at the Alexandria Detention Center in Alexandria, Virginia and the ninth is under house arrest for participating in a pro-life rescue of the unborn in a late-term abortion center in Washington, D.C. (Related: Pro-lifers call for shutdown of U.S. Attorney’s office in D.C., along with FBI field office and federal court, after protesters were thrown in a GULAG.)

The D.C. Nine have been in jail for around nine months. During this time, many of them have already suffered severe mistreatment that follows the definition of torture both based on American law and international standards.

The 59-year-old Idoni was put in extended solitary confinement for 22 days and denied sleep with the lights of her cell kept on continuously. Idoni, a mother of five, was made to appear in full shackles in federal court in March for a pre-trial hearing in a manner generally reserved for dangerous or violent criminals.

The 74-year-old Marshall was denied sufficient clothing and heat during the severe freezing winter cold, causing her to develop pneumonia, which went untreated for three weeks. She has been deprived of a critically needed hip surgery, counter to her doctor’s instructions, bringing about agonizing pain and exhausting use of her right leg.

Furthermore, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has directly violated the religious liberty of one of the pro-lifers, who has been placed on arrest, asserting that she be forbidden from attending church despite the defendant’s specific request to be permitted to attend Mass aside from her doctor’s visits.

The 75-year-old Harlow, a devout Catholic, has been denied permission to attend mass at a Catholic Church while under house arrest despite her specific request to the judge while in court.

Punishment for pro-life activism unprecedented

Speaking on the “historic importance of these sentencings,” jailed pro-lifer Hinshaw wrote in a recent article for LifeSiteNews, “From the abolitionists, the suffragettes, the civil rights movement, anti-Vietnam war protests, anti-nuclear protests, climate alarmists and even the ‘mostly peaceful’ riots of 2020, NO ONE was threatened with 11 years!”

“We are now entering into the ‘Fugitive Slave Law’ period of our comparable struggle – wherein the slavers/abortionists try to make us all complicit in their evil,” Hinshaw said.

“To our ruling class, abortion is sacred; we sacrifice children to it, and they are determined we all genuflect. This I wrote in response to a Michael Novak column 30 years ago, in harmony with Lincoln’s perspective on slavery: We will either lay all our laws, legal systems and institutions at the feet and service of abortion or we will eradicate it. As with slavery, compromise is cooperation.”

Hinshaw added that America will stand on the edge of a cliff it has never seen before on May 14. He went on to say that America can fall to tyranny by the action of one old, tired, retired and irrelevant judge who “has no bone to gnaw.”

The pro-life rescuers will face sentences of up to 11 years in jail for trying to stop the murder of late-term babies in the Santangelo abortion clinic in Washington, D.C.

“If you do not yet see the historic importance of these sentencings, scheduled for May 14, 15 and 17, then you must cite when peaceful, civil disobedience has ever been so threatened and punished in the United States,” Hinshaw stressed.

Follow Abortions.news for more stories about the ongoing battles of pro-lifers against pro-abortion advocates.

Watch the video below about Glenn Beck’s commentary on the pro-lifers who are facing 10 years in prison for praying.

This video is from the High Hopes channel on Brighteon.com.