Lauren Handy is an American pro-life activist.
Personal life
Handy is a queer convert to Catholicism.[1][2][3] As the Catholic Church teaches that sexual acts outside of marriage are sinful, she remains celibate.[4] She was molested as a child by a non-family member.[4]
Her father is a painter.[4] Handy grew up as a Southern Baptist.[4]
She attended Central Virginia Community College with the intent of working in a museum as an art historian.[3][4] While there, she was both pro-life and agnostic.[3] A student at nearby Liberty University invited her to go sidewalk counseling.[3] Handy was moved by the experience of seeing women walking into the abortion facility to have abortions, and started to attend church several days a week.[3] Six weeks later she skipped her final exams, dropped out of school, sold all her belongings, and moved to California to become a full time activist with Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust.[3][4]
She has lived with several congregations of the Missionaries of Charity, including one in Haiti, where she worked in a hospice.[3][4]
Political views
Handy is an anarcho-mutualist.[1]
Career
In 2017, Handy founded Mercy Missions, a mutual aid organization.[1] Mercy Missions helps families and mothers in crisis pregnancies and provides survival aid for the homeless.[1]
Handy is currently the Director of Activism for the Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising.[1][2]
Activism
Handy has been involved with a number of activist organizations.[1] Handy has been in a leadership role of the Red Rose Rescue movement since its founding.[1] As a sidewalk counselor, Handy employs a LGBT+ inclusive message and has been to more than 100 abortion facilities in more than 32 states.[1][3] She sometimes will surreptitiously enter a facility, leave literature about alternatives inside, and then leave.[4] As she believes abortion is an act of violence, and because she wants to interrupt the cycle of violence, Handy employs non-violent principles and tactics.[4]
Handy began entering abortion facilities to speak to pregnant women in 2013.[3] She stands outside a Washington D.C. Planned Parenthood facility three or four times a week, telling people that "there is free help available for you and your family."[4] She claims to have helped over 800 families chose to give birth rather than have an abortion.[1][3] One abortionist sued Handy for loss of revenue after she helped 12 women find the resources they needed and the women decided not to have abortions.[3]
Handy has discovered the bodies of aborted children in dumpsters behind abortion facilities and given them proper burials.[3][4]
She has been arrested more than 30 times during her activism.[1][3] Charges are often dropped, or sentences suspended.[3] She purposely does not earn wages, so her wages cannot be garnished in a lawsuit.[4] She supports herself with donations and occasional graphic design jobs.[4]
2019 Pink Rose Rescue
Handy was convicted in of trespassing and resisting arrest for her actions at a "pink rose rescue" in Flint, Michigan.[2] She spent four days in jail.[4]
2021 Pink Rose Rescue
In 2021, Handy conducted a pink rose rescue at an Alexandria, Virginia abortion facility.[2] During the rescue, she and five others entered the waiting room of the facility and handed pink roses to women who were scheduled to undergo abortions.[2] Along with the roses, the women were given information on resources available to them and their children, and information on alternatives to abortion.[2] Protesters will sometimes go limp, forcing police officers to lift their bodies onto stretchers to remove them.[4]
According to the Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising, five women chose not to have abortions as a result of the pink rose rescue.[2] Handy was sentenced to 30 days in prison for trespassing.[2]
2020 abortion facility blockade
On October 22, 2020, Handy and four others from the Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising blocked access to a facility that performed abortions in Washington D.C.[5][6][4] Handy made an appointment at the facility under a fake name.[5][6] Once inside, she and the other protesters used their bodies, chains, ropes, and furniture to block the doors.[5][6] The protest was livestreamed on Facebook.[5]
They were convicted of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act.[5]
2022 fetus incident
On March 25, 2022, Handy and Terrisa Bukovinac were sidewalk counseling outside of Washington Surgi-Clinic in D.C. when they saw a medical waste disposal company's truck parked outside.[3][4] They approached the driver and asked if they could give the aborted children inside the boxes a proper funeral.[3] They took the box back to Handy's apartment and, with a deacon present, opened the box with a video camera running.[3]
Inside the box they discovered 115 aborted fetuses inside, including five they believed were old enough to be viable outside the womb.[3][5] This would mean the facility violated the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act and the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act.[7] Handy and Bukovinac suspected one fetus may have been born alive and left to die outside the womb, and another was a partial-birth abortion.[3] They put the older children into the refrigerator at Handy's house while they tried to find a pathologist, and Handy temporarily moved in with Bukovinac.[3] They then contacted lawyers, priests, and other experts to determine how they should proceed.[4]
Two days later, a Catholic priest said a funeral mass for the 115 fetuses; each was given a name that was read at the mass.[3][5] The bodies were then buried in a cemetery.[3]
The pair then hired a lawyer to contact the DC Medical Examiner.[3][5][4] On March 29, they asked for autopsies to be performed and homicide investigations opened.[3] That evening, Handy left her apartment door unlocked so that police could enter.[3][4] On the morning of March 30, when Handy returned to her apartment, she was met by FBI agents and arrested.[3] Bukovinac then entered Handy's apartment and found the bodies still there.[3] The fetuses were later removed from the apartment with Bukovinac present.[5][3]
Handy was never charged,[5][6] but her landlord terminated her lease.[3]
References
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 "Our Team". Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising. Retrieved November 22, 2023.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 "Lauren Handy jailed as pro-life 'rescue' movement returns". The Pillar. July 12, 2022. Retrieved November 22, 2023.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 "Lauren Handy: 'These children were murdered'". The Pillar. April 5, 2022. Retrieved November 22, 2023.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 Resnick, Sofia (August 30, 2023). "Why Were There Fetuses in Her Refrigerator? How a radical abortion opponent ended up dumpster-diving for remains". The Cut.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Patil, Anushka (August 30, 2023). "Anti-Abortion Activist Who Kept Fetuses Is Convicted in Clinic Blockade". New York Times. Retrieved November 22, 2023.
- 1 2 3 4 Sherman, Carter (August 29, 2023). "US anti-abortion activist who kept fetal remains convicted of blockading clinic". The Guardiam. Retrieved November 22, 2023.
- ↑ "National Pro-Life Activist Declares Her Candidacy for the Democratic Party's Nomination for President". Yahoo Finance. 2023-09-14. Archived from the original on October 1, 2023. Retrieved 2023-10-07.