How a radical abortion opponent ended up dumpster-diving for remains.
Handy is among a minority of militant activists who actually practice what the mainstream anti-abortion movement preaches. When former president Donald Trump likens an abortion to “a baby [being] ripped from the mother’s womb moments before birth,” or when Fox News host Tucker Carlson says, “Planned Parenthood kills people,” activists like Handy have taken that idea literally. Even before a draft Supreme Court opinion leakedto Politico suggested the justices plan to overturn the right to an abortion, Handy was willing to risk prison time to block patients from accessing the procedure. “Personally, I believe we can shut down abortion facilities without the Supreme Court through sustained and mass mobilization, protests, and people power,” Handy said four weeks before the leak. “So regardless of what happens with Roev.Wade, I believe we can dismantle the abortion industry.”
Laura Meyers, CEO and president of Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington, D.C., describes Handy as “a constant presence outside our D.C. health center.” “She and other anti-abortion activists regularly bully, intimidate, and menace our patients and staff, block access to our health center, and verbally assault people simply trying to access health care while hurling misinformation, lies, and invective,” Meyers wrote in an emailed statement. Handy estimates that she has gained entry to at least 100 abortion clinics since 2013, either to counsel patients inside or to surreptitiously drop off anti-abortion literature.
And as abortion becomes increasingly restricted across the U.S., she is passing her militant tactics on to a new generation of activists with a group called Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising, emboldening protesters to sow chaos where the procedure remains legal. “The message that we’re spreading is that you can dismantle the abortion industry on a community level and in blue strongholds,” Handy says.
https://www.thecut.com/2022/05/indicted-anti-abortion-activist-lauren-handy-fetuses.html