About FACE: Will Activists Go to Prison for Defending Life?

Mark Harrington (00:01):

Five pro-life activists are charged with violating the freedom to access clinic entrances law and face up to 11 years in prison. I will have one of the lead attorneys on the program to discuss this and what this means for them and for the pro-life movement. Also, we’re going to be talking about late term abortions. Are they a thing? Well, according to the pro-abortion people, they aren’t happen. Nobody promotes them. Well, I’ll debunk that here on the program with evidence and video. So stay tuned. You’re listening to the Mark Harrington Show

(00:48):

Activist Radio. The Mark Carrington show is brought to you by Created Equal, and you can donate to our work by going to created equal.org, and you can pick up the program on all the popular podcasting platforms. Follow me on social media as well, Instagram, YouTube, and all the rest. We’re here in Ohio fighting this constitutional amendment that’s going to be on the ballot in November. We’re going to talk about that later in the program. But before we do, we got some breaking news coming out of Washington DC and I know if you’re a pro-life activist like myself, you’ve been following this closely and I’ve been talking about it for years with gaood friends of mine who are involved in the Operation Rescue Movement or have been the Red Rose Rescue Movement. My good friend Dr. Monica Miller and others I’ve had on the program to talk about it.

(01:40):

Well, today we’re going to talk about this case in Washington DC against five individuals, pro-life activists that were involved in a rescue, if you will, at the San Angelo Abortion Mill in Washington dc, the Washington Sergi Clinic back in October of 2020. And they were charged, or at least in March of 2022 if I’m correct here, and a verdict was handed down last week against the five, found guilty of violating the freedom to access clinic entrances law. And so we want to talk about that with Martin Cannon, who is the senior trial counsel for the Thomas Memorial Society, who represents Lauren Handy, one of those plaintiffs. Mike, I’m sorry, Martin, thanks for being on the show. We appreciate everything that Thomas Moore society does. They keep people like me out of trouble. I appreciate that very much you guys and the work. Very welcome. I love Tom Breca, Peter Breen, Andy Bath, they’re all good friends of mine and do just amazing work. So listen, I want to bring our people up to speed as to what’s happening here. There’s been a lot of discussion in the pro-life movement about this trial. And if you would bring us up to speed. We’ve got five individuals, Lauren Handy, will Goodman, John Hinshaw, Heather, I don’t. I think it’s pronounced. And then Rosemary Garrity goes by Herb, have all been apparently convicted of face. So first of all, what is the freedom to access clinic entrances law or face? What is it?

Martin Cannon (03:27):

What it is is a law that was passed in the early nineties that basically says it’s illegal to use force threat or obstruction to block somebody’s access to a clinic because that person is providing or seeking reproductive health services. And reproductive health services, of course revolve around abortion.

Mark Harrington (03:50):

And this was brought

Martin Cannon (03:51):

Up access to a clinic because they’re doing something other than legal abortions. You’re not violating face. And that’s something we might talk about in a little more detail here because that was essentially our defense

Mark Harrington (04:04):

And the law was passed and signed into law during the Clinton administration after the Operation Rescue movement because of the blockades and really up to date, it hasn’t really come into play until recently. And thats something we need to talk about.

Martin Cannon (04:20):

Yeah, there’s been a spike in face prosecutions. I’ve handled several of them, but they’re separated by years. And then suddenly we have this one, we have Mark Houck, we’ve got one in Tennessee, we have one in Michigan. It was as though the D O J could see that Roe was on borrowed time and they were just starting brush fires everywhere they could.

Mark Harrington (04:42):

Right, right. So let’s talk about this specific case. My listeners, my viewers will be familiar with that abortion center there in Washington dc, the Washington DC Surgery Center run by late term abortionists Cesari San. My listeners and viewers are familiar with that because we talked about the DC five, the late term children, along with others that were retrieved from the sidewalk from a medical waste provider over about a year and a half ago. That obviously is a story that runs parallel in some ways to this. But before that is when the alleged violation of face occurred. And that was in, if I’m correct, and correct me if I’m wrong, Martin, that was March of 2020, I’m sorry, October of 2020. Is that correct?

Martin Cannon (05:35):

Yeah.

Mark Harrington (05:36):

Yeah. Okay. And so what’s gone on now? They’ve had tell us about the case starting what, a couple of weeks ago. Get us up to speed.

Martin Cannon (05:46):

Well, first of all, it’s not just our five. There are 10 defendants and the judge split the case in two. So the other 10 or the other five will be tried very shortly here. And it’s really one case. So in a way, the case isn’t really over yet, but R five were tried. It took us a week to get a jury, and that’s actually pretty important. This is Washington DC The judge wisely pulled in over a hundred people for a jury pool, and we took a week going through it. Easily 75% of the jury pool were people who not only donate to Planned Parenthood regularly, but also March in the women’s marches. And out of the 110 or 120 people, only two or three made vague and kind of non-committal notions and comments about being pro-life. So that by the time we got a jury selected, we had three or four people who are regular donors to Planned Parenthood and March in the marches. And the other members of the jury are people for whom access to reproductive healthcare is a very important issue. So you could see the problem in Washington dc. And having said that, I do think the jury listened to us pretty carefully, especially during closing, and they did take a little longer to come up with their convictions than they might have. So I do think they were thinking about it, but nonetheless, you can see what we’re dealing with.

Mark Harrington (07:13):

And I think we all understand, I’ve talked about this, and most of America understands you can’t get a fair trial in Washington dc Look at Donald Trump right now. I mean, it’s just not likely that man’s going to walk away without a conviction. And I think we all understand the corruption and the Department of Justice and all of that, and we’ll get into that afterwards. But talk about the trial. How’d it go? The verdict, what it means for those who are now sitting in prison?

Martin Cannon (07:40):

It’s very important, understand that the violation of faith for most of our people would be a misdemeanor. And there’s a question about physical injury can kind of kick it up and all that. And there’s some uncertainty on that point as to sentencing. But the big takeaway here is this is likely to be a misdemeanor, but the federal government in seeing that charges them also with a conspiracy under a little used conspiracy statute that makes a conspiracy to commit a misdemeanor, a felony. So we’ve got people who could be convicted of a six month violation, the underlying violation, but do 10 years in prison for conspiring to do it, which is just imbalanced. It’s unfair. It’s improper.

Mark Harrington (08:29):

Yeah. And the thing is, I to, I don’t want to get too far into the weeds here, but it’s what they call conspiracy against rights. Am I correct? That’s correct. And what right is being conspired against?

Martin Cannon (08:41):

Well, that in theory is the federal, right? The federal constitutional right to an abortion. And of course our argument is that after Dobbs, there is no longer such a right. And that’ll be one of the on appeal that I do think the Supreme Court will take very seriously.

Mark Harrington (08:59):

Well, certainly there is no federal right to abort. We believe that all along. But as far as the Supreme Court goes, they struck down Roe v. Wade, and Dobbs is the precedent now. So that’s the thing here, right? So what is the penalty for a first timer if they violate face and it’s a nonviolent violation,

Martin Cannon (09:22):

Six months.

Mark Harrington (09:23):

Six months. Six months. So six months. And the conspiracy against rights you say is up to 10. Is that the

Martin Cannon (09:29):

Yes, yes.

Mark Harrington (09:31):

Okay.

Martin Cannon (09:32):

So it’s just very disproportionate. Most federal conspiracy charges are brought under a different statute that specifically provides that the penalty for the conspiracy can be no worse than the penalty for the underlying crime. Makes sense? In this case, there’s no such protection because federal constitutional rights are sort of a sacred cow, and maybe they should be, but the problem is there isn’t one anymore. And that’s an important change since Dobbs.

Mark Harrington (10:05):

And let’s just talk about face generally. It was, I think, signed into law in 1993. Maybe I’m wrong there, but maybe

Martin Cannon (10:11):

94, early nineties

Mark Harrington (10:14):

Unconstitutional, right?

Martin Cannon (10:18):

Law

Mark Harrington (10:18):

Itself, argument

Martin Cannon (10:19):

Itself, there’s a very good argument that it’s actually content based and other constitutional arguments. Of course, they’ve been tried many, many times and it’s always survived. This might be different because it’s post-ops, it’s never been challenged. And our case has been, we’ve made a good record on it. It’s teed up, it’s ready for that challenge, and we’re probably farther in the pipeline than any other case.

Mark Harrington (10:45):

So five, these five plaintiffs were found guilty of violating face and the conspiracy against rights. Tell us what happened when the judgment was handed down decision. Well,

Martin Cannon (10:56):

That was also a bit of a surprise. The expectation is typically that when you get convicted of a crime, you’ve been out on pretrial release, you stay out on pretrial release until you’re sentencing, which could be a couple months down the road. In this case, the judge took the defendants immediately into custody. And the reason she did is because she feels like she did it under a state, a federal law that says when you convict somebody of a crime of violence, you take ’em into custody right away. You don’t wait for sentencing. She viewed the face act or violation of it as a crime of violence, even though you can violate face without committing violence. So we feel like she put it in in the wrong category. And we just yesterday filed an emergency appeal with the DC Circuit Court of Appeals to have her view of that reviewed.

Mark Harrington (11:54):

Right. So explain what your client did.

Martin Cannon (12:02):

Well,

(12:04):

It starts actually with the San Angelo video that your client, your people are probably familiar with 10 years before the events. She’s a kid in college, she’s liberal as they come. She’s a very left-leaning person in practically every way. But she sees this video and it absolutely struck her to the core. She skipped her final exam, she quit school, she sold her book collection, she packed her bag and she took a four day train trip. Well, first of all, she took a four hour train ride to San Angelo’s clinic where Lila Rose was having a press conference, attended the press conference. Then she took a four day bus trip, I think it was to California to work for another pro-life organization researching specifically the incidents of Born Alive abortions. That was such an important thing to her that she came back across the country on two occasions to go just to his clinic. And that became a big part of our defense because if San Angelo is delivering babies alive and killing them or letting them die, this is not reproductive healthcare under face. And those babies are entitled to all the same protections that you and I’d be entitled to if somebody was killing us. Lauren can go in the clinic, she can block things, she can make a ruckus, she can refuse to leave. She’s protecting human children whose killing is not protected by face.

Mark Harrington (13:40):

And you attempted, at least from what I’ve read, to introduce information regarding this, the images and the video. And Mr. Producer, if you would go ahead and play this. This is really rough stuff, friends. I mean, this is grotesque terrible. I mean beyond belief that someone can do this, but we have the footage and the judge refused to allow this into court. Is that correct? Right.

Martin Cannon (14:09):

She looked at the video and she felt like in it, San Angelo was not admitting that these live birth abortions were happening or could happen in his clinic. I think she’s just reading it wrong. She felt like the prejudicial impact of these videos exceeded their probative value and all that. That’s a kind of weighing thing that we do about evidence. But interestingly enough, how could it be? How could they have a prejudicial effect, if not for the very important point that we’re trying to bring out here?

Mark Harrington (14:47):

Exactly. If

Martin Cannon (14:48):

We were showing Petri dishes or lasagna pans full of appendixes that people had removed, nobody would say that has prejudicial impact. It’s because these are babies.

Mark Harrington (15:02):

And so they didn’t allow the defense that she was out to defend these pre-born children. And we’ve talked about this case on

Martin Cannon (15:12):

That just one bit. The judge allowed her to testify that she had seen a video which convinced her that San Angelo’s letting babies be born alive and killing them or letting ’em die. And she talked about how much it impacted her, but without actually showing the video, that just sounds like the ravings of an activist who’s conspiratorial or whatever. The video would’ve given Lauren credibility on that point, and we weren’t allowed to show it.

Mark Harrington (15:40):

Well, the video also lends to the charges of people that, like myself, who said, that’s Angelos violating federal law, partial both abortion act and the unborn victims of violence act. Right? I mean, that obviously isn’t part of this case, but those charges have never been even barely even looked at by the Washington DC establishment, if you will. So, alright, so Lauren and the others are currently in prison awaiting sentencing. When is that happening?

Martin Cannon (16:19):

It isn’t scheduled yet. We’ve got, of course right now we’re working on the reversing the immediate incarceration thing. That’s going to take some time. We also have what’s called a Rule 29 motion that we have to make. It’s a motion to dismiss that really happens at the close of the state’s case, but we put it off until the end of the trial so we could have the benefit of the transcript to make it. That’s mostly a formality, but the sentencing won’t be set likely until after that hearing.

Mark Harrington (16:47):

So friends, first of all, we need to be praying for these individuals who are currently incarcerated because of their defense of the unborn. You may not agree with rescue, you may agree with rescue. You may think that civil disobedience is not something that pro-life activists should be participating in. Really, to me, that’s not even an issue here. We have fellow brothers and sisters who are being persecuted, taken to prison possibly because of their beliefs that the pre-born deserve rights and are willing to put their bodies in the way to possibly defend them and do things that are completely, from my perspective, legitimate if we believe that what we believe and that is that the unborn or human and deserve the same protections that born children do. So Martin, if you would, let me put a fine point on this and get your perspective on what you think is really going on here. Is the Biden administration trying to send a signal to pro-lifers or is this just a one-off?

Martin Cannon (17:55):

I think it’s trying to send signals in two directions. One to the pro-lifers saying, we’re watching, we’re not going to overlook any of this stuff. You commit a small crime, we’re going to charge you with a big one. But I think they’re also sending a signal to their base that says, we’re on this. When Dobbs came down and left was going crazy, I think the Biden administration wanted to get on the wagon, and that’s kind of what we’re looking at here. And then on the other end of it, Lauren’s concerns about live birth abortions were very much corroborated by these babies that came off the truck a year or so after the event. And we and a lot of other people, 25 congressmen and senators demanded that this be investigated. DC Mayor Muriel Bowser wrote a letter back to them saying, without any autopsy having been done, no significant evaluation of these babies at all. She said, and her police person said, these babies were killed legally, the real crime here is how Lauren Handy came into possession of the babies. Forget about the murder over here. Look at the jaywalker over here. They are. So in the tank for this sacred cow that is abortion, that truth doesn’t even matter.

Mark Harrington (19:16):

And so the second trial of the what is there four more that are going before the same judge, when is that taking place?

Martin Cannon (19:23):

It’s very soon. I forget the exact date, but it’s within the next few weeks.

Mark Harrington (19:27):

Okay. So friends, we want you to be praying for this case. We want you to be praying for the Thomas Moore Society and their attorneys, including Martin as they try to defend the folks here that are involved in this. This should concern all of us as pro-life activists, that it’s open season. The Biden administration will stop at nothing to stop us even if it comes to using laws like the Face Act to bring us down. So we’re seeing this across the board, this type of corruption and we need to be willing to stand against it. Martin, if you would give us some parting words as you’re representing Lauren and for that matter, many of these and likewise, how would you exhort our fellow pro-life activists a across the country as they’re looking at this?

Martin Cannon (20:18):

Well, I would say first of all, pray for our clients. They need it. They’re a lovely, lovely bunch of people I’ve thoroughly enjoyed. I feel it’s an honor to represent them. The other thing is join them. They are falling on their sword. One of them likes to say abortion is murder. Let’s act like it. And they are falling on their swords on this issue already. We’ve seen pro-abortion people flipped over to pro-life stuff because of these people and this case. And it’s going to keep happening, but it will happen all the more if more people kind of join them on the sidewalks or join them in the clinics. It is so worthwhile. We are winning this issue. We are winning this thing. But it has been entirely a product of God’s grace and the actions of activists, not people sitting in their church basements, writing letters to the editor, but getting out there and making noise when the more politic people would say, you should be quiet. So we need the activists, we love the activists. We’ll take ’em with all their warts. They’re wonderful people and God bless them.

Mark Harrington (21:31):

Well, you’re speaking our language here, created Equal. Again, my guest today, Martin Cannon, senior trial counsel for the Thomas Morris Society. Martin, thanks for taking the time and we will be in prayer for you and all of those who are representing our friends there in Washington with this egregious Face Act trial. Appreciate your work.

Martin Cannon (21:53):

Thank you very much. Thanks for having

Mark Harrington (21:57):

So friends, I hope that the last segment with Martin Cannon brought you up to speed as to what’s happening with this case against the five activists in Washington on the freedom to access clinic entrances law. And what I want to do is I want to segue to what’s happening here in the state of Ohio because this whole concept or idea, the notion that there’s late term abortion happening in America is something that the pro-abortion activists will not admit. They continually say that it’s not a thing, it doesn’t happen. We’re not pronoia. Democrats don’t want to support it. Pro-abortion activists don’t support it and it’s just not happening. Well, nothing can be further from the truth. This recently came up in the G O P debate several weeks ago when Ron DeSantis brought up the story of an abortion survivor, a victim who survived an abortion.

(22:52):

And right there before your eyes, you can see it. And he mentioned it and that started a firestorm of controversy across the country talking about late term abortion. And of course the other side is circling the wagons on this and saying that it doesn’t happen. Now, I just want to give you a little bit of information here, and that is this late term abortion really is not defined specifically by the medical community, although there is a general consensus that it takes place around the second trimester when an unborn child can feel pain. And so this can be anywhere from 15 weeks and up. Right now, the state of Ohio, we have an abortion ban at 21 and a half weeks, and that’s generally based on the notion of viability. So somewhere in this area is what we consider a late term abortion. They happen according to the Centers for Disease Control.

(23:52):

113 late term abortions occurred in the state of Ohio in 2020. After 21 weeks, there were 1200, sorry, 1,218 abortions were committed after 16 weeks in the state of Ohio, nationally speaking according to, again to the Centers of Disease control, about 10,000 late term abortions occur in the United States. So it is a thing, and if you don’t believe me, let’s just look at the ones who perform them. The Alan Guttmacher Institute basically verifies that this is a thing. According to Alan Guttmacher himself who was the father of Planned Parenthood, he said that abortions would be unlikely to prolong much less life or save life. He said today it’s possible for almost any patient to be brought through a pregnancy alive unless they suffer from fetal illness such as cancer or leukemia. So what he’s saying there is that these so-called late term abortions are occurring on healthy babies and healthy mothers.

(25:14):

This is the case. I mean, we look at Martin Haskell who performs late term abortions here in the state of Ohio. And he goes, I’ll be quite frank, most of my abortions are elective in that range of 20 to 24 weeks. In my particular case, probably 20% are for genetic reasons, only two out of 10 for reasons of genetics, 80% are purely elective. So we’re talking about Martin Haskell, we’re talking about Alan Guttmacher verifying that late term abortions do happen. And of course I just showed you video of Sari Angelo’s victims, the five that were retrieved from a sidewalk in front of an abortion center in Washington dc. We don’t need any more evidence than that. It may not be happening as often as second and first trimester abortions, but if you consider that what in the state of Ohio, 113 were killed this way in 2020 and 1,218 after 16 weeks of pregnancy, and that in the country 10,000 occur every year, that’s a lot.

(26:30):

Especially looking at these children, most of them can live outside the womb. And so friends, the reason I’m bringing this up is not only is there a full scale effort to debunk the, that there are late term abortions all across the country coming from the Democrat party in regards to the 2024 presidential election. But we’re facing this in Ohio, and that is we have a constitutional amendment that’s going to be on the ballot on November 7th, and it will expand abortion up to the very moment of birth. If you don’t believe me, let’s listen to the ones that are promoting the amendment. And what I want to do is I’m going to play this clip. This is from my good friend and colleague, Seth Drayer, who comments on the statements made by those who are supporting the amendment and a question that was asked from a reporter regarding the idea that abortions would be enshrined in the Ohio Constitution up to the very moment of birth. Go ahead and play this clip again, Seth Drayer commenting from this press conference that was held regarding the abortion amendment here in Ohio. Go ahead and play the clip.

Seth Drayer (27:40):

The radical pro-abortion amendment in Ohio would make it legal to kill babies through all nine months of pregnancy. Don’t believe me. Listen to their leaders.

Reporter (27:49):

This issue is that

Mark Harrington (27:51):

That’s a reporter right there asking the question that there’s abortions up to the very moment of birth.

Abortion Advocate (27:58):

Trust Ohioans to be able to make their decision about their reproductive healthcare.

Seth Drayer (28:02):

Her response, not that’s wrong, but we trust people to decide for themselves. Now that’s enough right there. But the reporter taking that as a non-answer, repeated his question, and then the leader of pro-choice Ohio stood up

Abortion Advocate (28:15):

All due respect. That’s bs. There are very few instances respect where a patient requires an abortion later in pregnancy. And when they do, that is a deeply personal decision with very complex

Mark Harrington (28:32):

Facts personal

Abortion Advocate (28:33):

That have to be taken into account once that no politician or judge should be involved. In

Seth Drayer (28:39):

All due respect, there’s our answer. First, she says that late term abortions are rare, but that means they do happen. And further, she says that when they happen, they’re personal, so personal that people should decide without any judge or politician involvement. That means their amendment is aimed toward giving every born person the right to kill preborn people that is babies at any point in pregnancy, early or late, there’s our answer. This is barbaric. This is radical protect children. Vote no.

Mark Harrington (29:05):

There you go. Couldn’t have said it better. My colleague, SRE responding to the comments of the pro-abortion people regarding the notion, the understanding that the abortion amendment here in Ohio will legalize abortion up to the very moment of birth and remove all limitations on abortion up until birth. Kelly Copeland, the pro-abortion advocates, said that these abortions occur because women are, it’s a deeply personal issue, deeply personal. Let’s think about that. Let’s extrapolate that and say, what about born children? Do you think it’s deeply personal for a woman to kill their born child? What’s personal about that? Nothing. It’s barbaric, period. She says complex. What is so complex about a child that can live outside the womb who by killing it does nothing to save the life for health of the mother because the baby can live outside the womb. You don’t need to take the life of the unborn child.

(30:12):

In fact, c Everett Coop, who was a former surgeon general around 1980, said this about late term abortions in the cases affecting or dealing with the issues of the health of the mother. He said, I have never known of one instance where the child had to be aborted to say the mother’s life or health, not a single one. And I mean, it makes sense if the child’s viable, perform a cesarean section, deliver the child alive. There’s no reason to kill the baby other than you want a dead baby. And that’s really at the heart of this. So late term abortions are a thing in the state of Ohio. We are looking at this constitutional amendment which will enshrine abortion up to the moment of birth. Remove all limitations on abortion. Why do I say that? If you look at the language itself and Mr. Producer, if you would scroll down and we have this amendment on our website@createdequal.org slash abortion amendment.

(31:25):

And if you hover over the words health, you’ll see what that means. So basically the constitutional amendment basically says that abortion can be restricted or banned in the cases of viability. It talks about what viability means, but then says that between the physician, which is the abortionist and the mother, they can decide to have an abortion in the cases if it threatens the health of the mother. And we know historically and legally speaking that that issue of health of the mother has been interpreted by courts and lawyers and attorneys and juris to include almost anything emotional, familial, psychological, spiritual health. So basically, for any reason or no reason, even if the child’s viable between the abortionist and the mother, if they believe that the child threatens the health of the mother, they can kill the baby after viability. And then again, viability has been redefined over the, in fact, Warren Hearn himself recently said in an article that appeared in the Atlantic Magazine, that viability is really up to the abortionist or the doctor he says, and the woman to decide.

(32:57):

So in other words, if the woman doesn’t want the baby, then the baby’s not viable. It has nothing to do with the science, has nothing to do with whether the baby can live outside the womb. And so that is why we make the case that if this amendment is passed, if this constitutional amendment is passed and abortion is enshrined in the Ohio Constitution, it will take away all limitations and restrictions on abortion all the way to the very moment of birth legalizing, painful, violent, late term abortions. We are telling the truth. And so people can understand that. And to find out more, you can go to our website@createdequal.org slash abortion amendment. And friends, we need your help. Here’s your call to action. I keep beating the drum here. We need people to come to Ohio and be involved in our door-to-door campaign. We are gearing up right now, and within a week we’re going to be hitting the ground running with groups all across the state in five separate regions. And we are hoping to knock on hundreds of thousands of doors between now and November, and we need people to come and volunteer to do that. And you can sign up by going to created equal.org/ohio and you can sign up on our website there and we will get in touch with you and put you in the game. So thanks for tuning in today on the Mark Harrington show. We’ll see you next time. God bless you. God bless America, and remember America to bless God.

Narrator (34:30):

You’ve been listening to Mark Harrington, your radio activist. For more information on how to make a difference for the cause of life, liberty and justice, go to created equal.org.org. To follow mark, go to Mark Harrington show.com. Be sure to tune in next time for your marching orders in the culture war.