By Ray Levy Ureda for Yes! Media. Broadcast version by Suzanne Potter for California News Service reporting for the YES! Media-Public News Service Collaboration
SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Kelli Dillon was only 24 when a surgeon at the Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla decided that she was not fit to be a parent and intentionally sterilized her without her consent. Dillon had sought medical attention for an abnormal pap smear and told the doctor that should he find cancerous cells, he could operate. After the procedure, Dillon intuitively felt that something was wrong, but the surgical team didn't tell her she had been sterilized. Dillon fought the prison staff for over a year to gain access to her medical records, and only when a lawyer from Justice Now, an Oakland-based social justice legal advocacy organization, requested the records did Dillon learn the truth.
In 2001, Dillon was one of 148 women incarcerated and living inside California's state prisons who experienced medical abuse in the form of forced tubal ligations or total hysterectomies without their knowledge or consent and without required state approvals. A 2013 report by The Center for Investigative Reporting found that the state paid prison doctors $147,460 between 1997 and 2010 to sterilize incarcerated women, which one prison doctor said "isn't a huge amount of money" when "compared to what you save in welfare paying for these unwanted children as they procreated more."
Until 2014, medical teams inside California prisons could lawfully provide sterilizations that were deemed "medically necessary" and for the purposes of birth control if they received permission from the patient. But Dillon's surgery, as well as dozens of others provided to young Black and Brown women, were not conducted with informed consent, according to a state audit. Dillon began to organize inside the women's prison by collecting testimonials from other women the prison's medical team had abused, and provided the personal accounts to staff at Justice Now that was laying the groundwork to petition for legislation that would ban the procedures in prisons.
Five years after she was forcibly sterilized, Dillon sued the state of California for damages, and her work helped to shape the scope of the Eugenics Sterilization Compensation Program Bill. "I felt like it was this time for these truths to be revealed ... these hidden evils that had been happening behind prison walls and institutional walls," Dillon says.
Dillon's personal story and work, along with the efforts of Justice Now, were the subject of the 2020 film, Belly of the Beast. The documentary follows Dillon and the Justice Now team over a decade as they lobby lawmakers in Sacramento to prevent prison doctors from sterilizing and abusing more women. Belly of the Beast also chronicles the period of recovery, healing, and rebuilding Dillon navigated after she was allowed to return home.
"It wasn't until the making of the film and the showing of the film did my actual healing begin," Dillon says. "Then I had to face what truly happened and the impact that it had on me and thousands of other women."
An American Legacy
Twenty years after she was forcibly sterilized, Dillon reflects that the government's actions are fundamentally about control: deciding who lives and who dies, who's worthy of creating community, and who deserves to build a family. "This is not just about the control of one's body, but this is about people who are trying to control humanity," Dillon says. "This is about people who are trying to control and determine the worth of a human life, and that is dangerous. And it's diabolical."
Despite this, forced sterilization remains legal at the federal level in the U.S. because of a 1927 Supreme Court case known as Buck v. Bell. American eugenicists used the case to probe the constitutionality of aVirginia state law that permitted forcible sterilizations to see whether they could take the process nationwide, says Jasmine E. Harris, a professor of law at the University of California, Davis School of Law.
An 8-1 decision found that the institutionalization of Carrie Buck for "feeblemindedness" and her subsequent sterilization were both legal and justified. As Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. wrote in the majority opinion, "Three generations of imbeciles are enough."
Though Buck was apparently institutionalized for an intellectual disability, Harris says that is false. Rather, Buck was a poor White woman-someone politically disempowered and simultaneously dependent on the state government for social support services. Buck's sterilization was a political move and a policy prototype motivated by a desire to "prevent dependency on social welfare programs and draining of the public coffers," Harris says. Carrie Buck's sterilization, as is often the case, was carried out at a government-run facility.
Once other states saw that they could justify the medical abuse of women with this legal precedent, sterilizations increased dramatically in the 20th century. Some estimates say that at least 70,000 women were forcibly sterilized because of state laws and other sources list the number of victims between 100,000 and 150,000. The uncertainty surrounding these totals is telling. "[Buck v. Bell] gave the green light to states to go ahead and actually create or incentivize sterilization of unwanted populations," Harris says, referring to those whose bodies and lives exist outside the norm of able-bodied White men, namely Black and Brown women.
During the height of this wave of eugenics by means of sterilization in the U.S., forced hysterectomies were so common in the Deep South that activist Fannie Lou Hamer coined the term "Mississippi Appendectomy" to describe them. Thousands of poor Black women who had sought medical treatment at teaching hospitals, either because it cost less or because Jim Crow laws prevented them from accessing other facilities, were sterilized.
It wasn't limited to the South, either. Between 1958 and 1968, the Eugenics Board of North Carolina forcibly sterilized a documented 2,163 individuals, most of whom were Black. Scholars also documented a direct link between victimization and receipt of public welfare in the state.
A 1970 federal law known as the Family Planning Services and Population Research Act allowed the Indian Health Service, which is run through the Department of Interior, to sterilize Native women and girls, often by means of coercion or deceit. Native activists and scholars estimate that the act paved the way for the IHS to sterilize 25% of Native women and girls between the ages of 15 and 44 in the 1970s.
The longest running and most expansive eugenics policy was enacted in California, where between 1909 and 1979 at least 20,000 people were sterilized, most of them women.
Organizing Against Medical Abuse
The legacy of 20th century sterilizations continues today. In September 2020, The Intercept reported that the Irwin County Detention Center in Georgia had forcibly sterilized at least five women in the custody of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, though the true number of women who have suffered this medical abuse is unknown.
Project South, a Georgia-based grassroots organization working to eliminate poverty and genocide, filed a complaint on behalf of the detained individuals, arguing that the human rights abuses in the detention center range from the highly publicized hysterectomies to a lack of precautions to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. Since Project South filed the complaint, at least 57 women have come forward to say they experienced medical abuse, says Azadeh Shahshahani, Project South's legal and advocacy director.
In response, congressional legislators toured the Irwin facilities, called for an investigation, and suggested that the ICE detention facilities be reformed. "It's good to see that the issue of medical abuse against women's bodies is finally getting the attention that it deserves," Shahshahani says. But she says that there's a real danger in what will likely be a slow initiation of incremental change. "What [we] really need is for the facility to be shut down as soon as possible and for the women to be free," Shahshahani says. "This place [cannot] be reformed."
True to the legacy of Buck v. Bell, the medical abuse of Black and Brown immigrants is linked with the physicality of the institution itself and the federal government's commitment to bureaucratic process over justice, Shahshahani says. The women represented in the complaint are "in U.S. government custody as well as the custody of these private prison corporations," Shahshahani says, adding that the private corporation that owns the facility-LaSalle Corrections-makes money off of the incarceration of women who lack permanent residency status. "Women have been dehumanized," Shahshahani says. "They're being treated as tools in order for these private prison corporations to make profit."
Each instance of medical abuse of women creates a new wave of awareness in the United States of the fact that Buck v. Bell was never overturned, further illustrating the need for legislative change and reparative policy, advocates say.
On the West Coast, California Latinas for Reproductive Justice is working to secure legislative change for victims of the state's sterilization efforts between 1909 and 1979. The reproductive justice organization is shepherding the proposed compensation program through the California legislature. If it passes, it will be the state's first legislative motion to provide monetary compensation to victims of its long-standing eugenics practice, says Laura Jiménez, executive director of CLRJ. "We're currently approaching the governor's office and the heads of the budget on both sides of the house in California and requesting that they include this request into their next year budget proposals," Jiménez says. In stewarding this legislation, California Latinas for Reproductive Justice is following the lead of North Carolina and Virginia, which established their own compensation programs in 2013 and 2015, respectively.
Many victims of California's unjust practices have died, but those who are eligible will receive the state's first financial compensation for this kind of medical abuse. Thus far, the apologies have not carried this kind of weight. In 2003, around the same time that California's prisons sterilized women like Dillon, then-Gov. Gray Davis issued a formal apology to the 20th century victims of sterilization and their family members.
Jiménez says that no financial payment could ever compensate holistically for medical abuse, but she says that "our systems talk to each other in money," and that the "symbolic gesture of regret from the state" would mark a first step in addressing California's problematic history. "I think that putting money behind it makes it sincere," Jiménez says. "It makes it more likely that the state will think twice about violating the human rights of people that are vulnerable and within its care."
Ray Levy Uyeda wrote this article for YES! Magazine. She is a Bay Area-based freelance writer who focuses on gender, politics, and activism. Follow her on Twitter @raylevyuyeda.
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By Faith Fistler for Kent State NewsLab.
Broadcast version by Nadia Ramlagan.
The first time Tyana Barton was singled out because of her hair was when she was told to straighten it before a dance recital.
"That was like the first time in maybe 10 years I've ever had to straighten my hair. So I was like, distraught about that," Barton said. "And everybody was just like, 'it's not that serious'. And I'm like, 'it is, though. It is.'"
At the predominantly white studio in Dayton, Barton's instructor wanted all the dancers to look the same for a particular performance. Barton, being the only Black dancer, was asked to straighten her afro-textured hair to comply.
"I'm looking at all of these other girls with long hair, and it's just like perfectly straight. And then I'm having to go over my hair several times with the straightener just to get it to any form. It made me super emotional," said Barton, who is now a fashion merchandising student at Kent State University.
In Ohio, there is no statewide legal protection against hair-based discrimination from employers and schools. Individuals can be told to change their afros, braids, dreadlocks and twists or denied employment opportunities if it does not align with dress code standards.
The Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair Act, otherwise known as the CROWN Act, would provide statutory protection for individuals discriminated against for wearing protective hairstyles unique to Black culture.
Rep. Juanita Brent (D-Cleveland) has been trying to get the act off the house floor since 2020. In 2023, she reintroduced House Bill 178 for the third time, now with bipartisan support from republican Rep. Jamie Callender (R-Concord).
"This is my life story. My hair may be straight now, but most times my hair is in braids," Brent said. "And I just think it's crazy that there are people who are being removed from classrooms, who are not allowed to participate in sports events and are being removed from job opportunities because they're choosing to have their hair in braids and afros."
The legislation has already passed in cities such as Columbus, Akron, Cincinnati and Cleveland Heights.
"There are so many places where discrimination is occurring. So sometimes it takes a lot longer to do it in every city, and every community," she said. "Sometimes people don't realize the need for it until it happens to your neighbor, your grandchild, it happens to yourself."
The Ohio Chamber of Commerce has testified against H.B. 178, arguing that it "increases civil liability for employers, limits at-will employment in our state, and hampers the ability for businesses to set their own workplace policies."
Kevin Shimp, who testified on behalf of the Chamber, did not respond to interview requests.
The legislation is currently with the House Civil Justice Committee and has until December 2024 to pass.
"Controlling people's hair is almost like putting people in their place and saying you don't belong here," Brent said.
The history of what is considered an acceptable presentation of Black hair in the United States dates back to slavery when European aesthetics became the standard, said Mwatabu Okantah, department chair and professor of Africana Studies at Kent State University.
"On the one hand, many of our people have just ignored it and have lived according to our own aesthetic values, even within the context of being here in the United States," Okantah said. "Then, others of our people have internalized it and have struggled with extremely negative perceptions of ourselves, seeing ourselves the way white society sees us."
Black people's response to the European aesthetic has gone through cycles of assimilating to the social norm to embracing natural hairstyles in spite of it. Okantah said the cultural shift in recent years could be attributed to changing attitudes and Black people holding more positions of power.
"Enough of us now are scholars, mental health professionals, lawyers, and politicians. And so we have more tools to take that back. So I think the CROWN Act came out of that," he said.
The CROWN Act was introduced in California in 2019. It is now law in around two dozen states. The House of Representatives approved the CROWN Act in 2022, but the Senate did not.
Wendy Greene, a professor at Drexel University Thomas R. Kline School of Law and founder of #FreetheHair, has served as an advisor since the CROWN Act was conceived and has found the experience "rewarding".
"It's been really great to be able to see how this legislation is empowering young people to be advocates, young people to express their racial and cultural identities freely in their schools and their workplaces," Greene said. "And to see in turn, how people are using this legislation to educate and enrich others who may not really be familiar with this kind of discrimination because it's not their experience."
While the legislation will not end racial discrimination, the CROWN Act means employers could be found financially responsible for an individual's loss of job opportunity and emotional or psychological damage, Greene said.
"The major legal obligation is to just to stop engaging in the discrimination in and of itself," she said.
Faith Fistler wrote this article for Kent State News Lab. This collaboration is produced in association with Media in the Public Interest and funded in part by the George Gund Foundation.
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By Amanda Robb for Ms. Magazine.
Broadcast version by Suzanne Potter for the Ms. Magazine-Public News Service Collaboration
At 9:05 a.m. on Thursday, Oct. 22, 2020, a group of anti-abortion extremists from at least six states forced their way into the Washington Surgi-Clinic, a facility that provides abortion care in Washington, D.C. Some bound themselves together with chains, ropes and bike locks to block access to the clinic's patient area. Others obstructed access to its employee entrance. Several used their bodies to try to prevent patients from entering the facility. Still more moved about assaulting patients-mostly verbally, but in one case physically-in the waiting room, a hallway and even in the small elevator leading to the fourth-floor clinic.
On March 30, 2022, the U.S. Department of Justice indicted nine of these extremists on two criminal counts: violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act and felony "conspiracy against [civil] rights." According to research by Ms. and its publisher, the Feminist Majority Foundation, this was the first time a "conspiracy against rights" charge had been added to a FACE prosecution. The attachment is significant because it affirms what abortion rights advocates have documented and tried to bring to the attention of authorities for decades: Anti-abortion extremists-including its most violent actors-are connected and coordinated. The additional charge also increases the possible punishment for the crimes from a maximum of one year in prison to up to 11 years of incarceration.
In August and September 2023, federal juries convicted eight of the defendants on both the FACE Act and conspiracy counts. The ninth chose a bench trial and was found guilty in November 2023.
Caroline Davis, now a 25-year-old paralegal living in Atlanta, would have been a 10th defendant in the case-but because she was facing the possibility of more than 30 years in prison for having also blockaded abortion clinics in Michigan and Tennessee, she flipped. In exchange for a lenient sentence for her crimes, Davis told federal agents, prosecutors and, ultimately, two trial juries everything she knew about the planning for the Washington, D.C., clinic incursion.
This article reveals, for the first time, how a violent clinic invasion was planned and executed. It is based on testimony by Davis, forensic analysis by FBI agents of the defendants' social media and cell phone records, footage obtained from the clinic's security cameras and responding police officers' body cameras, as well as the extremists' own Facebook livestream of what they interchangeably called a "lock-and-block" and a "rescue" (a term coined by anti-abortion extremists to mean physically preventing women from obtaining abortion care).
Fitting those pieces together shows that despite their protestations to the contrary, these extremists knowingly broke the law and willfully engaged in physical aggression. It also reveals that they were secretly materially supported by a network that included prominent individuals-"respectable" people who knew about the planned crime and provided the means to accomplish it, yet were not indicted as accessories.
Laying the Groundwork
Lauren Handy, in her late 20s, is a veteran of the young-adult anti-abortion extremist group Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust who became a leader of the Washington, D.C.-based Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising. PAAU is an allegedly left-wing, extremist anti-abortion organization "committed to direct action by putting our bodies between the oppressed and the oppressor."
Jonathan Darnel, in his early 40s, is a self-described "quasi full-time" anti-abortion crusader who ran a Facebook page called DC Area Anti-Abortion Advocacy.
On Sept. 11, 2020-43 days before the clinic invasion-Handy reached out to Darnel via Facebook Messenger. She asked him to review an invitation she was preparing for a Zoom meeting to "further nonviolent direct action within the pro-life movement."
"I would use the word 'rescue' in the title somewhere and 'civil disobedience' in the description," Darnel responded on Sept. 13. "Not too many people understand what is meant by 'direct action,' but the idea of deliberately breaking the law is sexy."
Both Handy and Darnel posted the meeting invite on the Facebook pages of several groups whose members they thought might be interested in attending, among them the Hometown Pro-Life Action and NoVa (Northern Virginia) Republicans.
On Sept. 18, Handy posted a screenshot on her private Facebook page of a graphic she was making for her presentation in the meeting. Titled "A Balance of Principles," it shows that Handy considers "rescue" to be a sweet spot between "physical intervention" and "violence."
The Zoom meeting took place on Sept. 25. It's unknown who attended or what exactly was said. What is clear, though, is that sometime during the following week, Handy called the Washington Surgi-Clinic. She told a receptionist that her name was Hazel Jenkins and she needed an abortion. The clinic scheduled her for 9 a.m. on Oct. 22.
"Say, if you can make time to come here the morning of Thursday the 22 [sic]," Darnel Facebook-messaged a Florida-based anti-abortion activist named James Kershner on Oct. 2. "Kind of big event."
Kershner obviously understood "kind of big event" to mean a clinic invasion and/or blockade.
"I would like to go," he responded, "but I would prefer to stay out on the sidewalk."
Assembling the Team
Joan Andrews Bell is known as "St. Joan" within the anti-abortion extremist community. Now in her mid-70s, she has been arrested more than 120 times for anti-abortion crimes, believes that it's "justifiable homicide" to murder abortion providers and, along with her husband, Chris Bell, employed James Charles Kopp at their New Jersey Good Counsel Home for women with "crisis pregnancies" shortly before he shot and killed Dr. Barnett Slepian, a New York OB-GYN who performed abortions.
On Oct. 7, Handy spoke with and texted both Bell and Darnel by phone. Over the next two weeks, she would speak or text with Bell 22 more times and with Darnel 41 more times.
On Oct. 13, Handy reached out via Facebook Messenger to Michael New, an assistant professor of social research at the Busch School of Business at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. Publicly, New focuses on anti-abortion policy; his studies have been published by the Heritage Foundation and the Family Research Council. But privately, New clearly supports so-called "direct action."
"Hey, the rescue is on October 22nd and I'm getting an Airbnb ... for two nights," Handy wrote to New. "I was wondering if you or someone you know could help me supplement the cost. Our plans for [the] 21st are to sidewalk counsel outside the Planned Parenthood ... and then go [to] the ACB [Amy Coney Barrett] hearings."
"I will help out with a donation," New responded, and sent $100 to a group run by Handy called Mercy Missions.
Soon thereafter Handy paid $118.07 through Airbnb for a place to stay in northeast D.C. from Oct. 21 to 23.
By Oct. 16, Handy had communicated with several extremists in several states.
"Yo," she Facebook-messaged Darnel that day. "Will, Matt and Patty want to risk arrest. Also, Joan has two people who might risk arrest. ... I'm calling Heather and seeing if there's any updates from her because I think she's been trying to get people to block."
Heather Idoni is a 50-something, anti-vaxxer, COVID-denying, anti-abortion extremist who owns a used bookstore in Linden, Mich. An inveterate "rescuer," she long believed that the Lord had delivered her from having to contend with the legal consequences of the FACE Act. Idoni's personal hero is Joan Bell. As soon as she heard that Bell would be participating in the Washington, D.C., clinic invasion, she was determined to participate too-and to bring others with her.
About six months earlier, Idoni had met Davis, the young woman who ultimately became a witness for the prosecution. Each had been protesting at a Michigan abortion clinic. They quickly developed what both describe as a mother-daughter relationship and began "rescuing" together. After learning that Bell was going to be participating, Idoni excitedly contacted Davis to invite her to come along to Washington, D.C. Davis made arrangements to attend.
By Oct. 20, at least 19 people had committed to participating in the action at the Washington Surgi-Clinic, most of them by blockading. That day, Handy texted Herb Geraghty, an anti-abortion extremist in his mid-20s coming from Pittsburgh for the invasion. "Honestly, it's so mind-blowing and we have more people leaning toward blocking. Joan [Bell] is taking my place to block because she wanted me on the outside to organize. I agreed because I respect her judgment."
Also on the 20th, Darnel forwarded Handy a private Facebook message from someone identified only as "Cyndie" during the trials.
"Dear Lauren, we are very excited about having you and the rescuers over tomorrow," Cyndie wrote. "It is my privilege to open up the home for this group. ... I want to be a blessing to you."
She offered to get the group pizza, then signed off, "Love you, sweetie."
At the trials, Davis testified that on the evening of Oct. 21, a planning meeting for the invasion took place at the home of "a pastor and his wife" located near Washington, D.C. On social media, Darnel refers to only one "Cyndie." She is Cyndie Kronz, the wife of Ron Kronz, pastor of the Street Church in Washington, D.C. Their home is in the D.C. area.
The Secret Pre-Invasion Meeting
Handy led the meeting. She explained to the group that she'd made a fake appointment at the clinic. This would require its staff to open the facility's door for her. When they did, the other extremists could push their way in behind her. Someone in the group discussed the clinic layout at length so the group could more effectively prevent patients from receiving abortion care.
Handy also carefully went over the potential "cost" of physically impeding access to the clinic. Anyone who did would almost certainly be arrested. Most likely they would be charged only with trespassing, but they could wind up with a FACE Act prosecution. That would land them in federal prison.
The group went on to discuss what roles could be played in the invasion and what tactics could be used to prolong it for as long as possible-in order to prevent as many abortions as possible. They ranged from "engaging police" (for example, getting them to talk about their feelings about abortion) to "locking and blocking" to going limp when the police attempted to arrest them. Veterans said that "the Holy Spirit" would lead them in their actions.
Handy or Darnel asked for a show of hands of those willing to risk arrest. About a dozen people volunteered-among them all the defendants in this case.
The Invasion
Sasha Proctor (a pseudonym used at trial) is a medical assistant at the Washington Surgi-Clinic. On Oct. 22, she arrived at work shortly before 9 a.m. and noticed something most people wouldn't give a moment's thought: The fire-escape door was ajar.
Proctor told the clinic's administrator, Tina Smith (a pseudonym). Smith immediately went to investigate and saw a dozen or so people gathered in the stairwell. She told them they shouldn't be there and that she would be calling law enforcement. Back in the clinic, she called the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department, then the FBI. She told both she was concerned that the clinic was about to be invaded.
While Smith made those calls, Proctor went to an office to watch the live feed from a hallway security camera. It was now 9 a.m., and she saw patients waiting to enter. But the people who'd been in the stairwell were now also in the hallway.
"I cracked ... the door first to kind of squeeze in the patients," Proctor told the court.
She was able to get a couple in, then she tried to close the door on the others in the hall. "But they started pushing back," Proctor said.
A nurse came to help reinforce the door. It was impossible. About half a dozen anti-abortion extremists poured into the waiting room. One, a man in his mid-40s named Jay Smith, pushed the nurse, causing her to sprain her ankle. Two others-Bell and Paulette Harlow, both in their 70s-were wearing bike locks around their necks. They started moving waiting room chairs in front of the door leading to the clinic's medical procedure area. Another carried in a large duffel bag. Jean Marshall, also in her mid-70s, took chains that were in the duffel and began using them to secure Bell, Harlow and John Hinshaw, in his 60s, together in front of the door to the medical area.
In the hallway, Idoni and William Goodman, in his 50s, stood in front of the clinic's staff entrance. Geraghty took up a position in the hallway outside the waiting room. Davis took the place she'd been assigned: in an elevator that patients needed to use to reach the fourth-floor clinic.
"I was supposed to talk to any who pressed on the fourth floor [elevator button] ... to try to talk them out of it, offer them help and loudly tell them my beliefs," Davis told the court.
Meanwhile, Handy and Darnel moved around the premises. Handy directed protesters on the first floor-both inside and outside the building-on where to go and what to do, updated the blockaders on the fourth floor on what was happening with law enforcement and "engaged" with police when they arrived. Darnel, meanwhile, walked around the building with his phone on a selfie stick, livestreaming the blockade.
"For only the third time in 25 years, pro-lifers are physically blocking the doors of an abortion clinic," Darnel said.
If only that were true: In 2018, just two years prior to these events, more than 9 percent of clinics responded to the Feminist Majority Foundation's National Clinic Violence Survey that they had been blockaded; nearly 7 percent reported that they'd experienced a facility invasion. National Abortion Federation data shows that there have been more than 6,000 clinic obstructions in the past decade.
"This is very risky for the rescuers," Darnel added.
The Patients Bear the Brunt
Shampy Holler was obviously in extreme pain when she, helped by her husband, exited the elevator on the fourth floor. They tried to enter the clinic waiting room but were blocked by extremists.
In the fourth month of her pregnancy, the couple had learned that something was terribly wrong with the fetus. If she carried to term, the baby they desperately wanted would not survive birth. The couple consulted with three doctors in Ohio, where they lived.
Holler, who'd emigrated to the U.S. from India just three years earlier, learned she would have to leave the state to terminate the pregnancy; at the time, later-term abortions were unobtainable in Ohio. The Hollers were forced to travel to Washington, D.C.
Oct. 22 was the last day of the three-day procedure Holler required. For all intents and purposes, when she arrived at the clinic that morning, Holler was in labor-hard labor.
"There's no abortions being performed here today," Geraghty told the couple.
Holler slumped and fell to the floor. Police officers arrived on the scene.
They asked Idoni to leave the clinic.
Around this time, Handy posted to her Facebook page: "Traditional lock-and-block rescue happening right now. We have 10 people acting as human shields to prevent our pre-born siblings from being killed."
Another patient, Ashley Jones (a pseudonym), exited the elevator. Somehow she managed to get past Geraghty and enter the clinic's waiting room.
Inside, Bell, Harlow and Hinshaw-in the chairs they pulled in front of the door to the medical area, and secured together with the locks and chains Marshall had wound around them-along with Jay Smith, were praying loudly, singing hymns and yelling vicious things.
Smith: "We just want you to know that if you die during your abortion procedure, you might wake up in a place you don't want to be!"
Harlow: "I love you, Mommy. Please don't kill me. I love you, Mommy. Please don't kill me. Please don't kill me!"
Bell: "We pray that you never have to suffer ... in purgatory for eternal life!"
Jones went to try to speak with Proctor, the medical assistant, who was behind a window at the receptionist's desk. But Marshall and some of the others kept jumping in front her, yelling at her and trying to distract her.
Two police officers entered the waiting area. Assessing the situation, they decided that they would need to get a breach kit (a set of tools police use to cut locks, break chains and open doorways) to get any patients into the facility. Meanwhile, Idoni kept blocking Jones from getting to the reception window.
Jones, the patient who managed to make her way into the waiting room, sobbed to the police officer.
"What are they doing to me? I need to go [in]!" she cried.
He couldn't yet help her. And all the while, Idoni was accosting Jones.
Finally, Jones maneuvered around her, grabbed a chair, stood on it, pulled herself on top of the counter between the waiting room and reception desk, and flung herself inside.
The Aftermath
Despite Darnel's claim that this was only the third blockade in a quarter century, the anti-abortion extremists leading the Washington Surgi-Center invasion knew that the police would give warnings before arresting anyone. After several police arrived, Handy told Darnel to tell anyone who didn't want to get arrested to leave the building. About half a dozen exited, and the police got out their breach kit. Several of the extremists went limp. Police had to carry Bell out in a wheelchair.
It's unclear what crimes metropolitan police charged the blockaders with. What is certain is that the blockaders didn't do much, if any, time. Idoni was posting on Facebook the next day.
After the incursion at the Washington Surgi-Clinic, its main players continued to invade abortion clinics throughout the country. It was part and parcel of a dramatic increase in clinic harassment and violence during the Trump administration.
From 2016 and 2020:
- The number of reported trespassing incidents increased from 247 to 1,265.
- The number of reported obstructions rose from 580 to 2,712.
- The number of reported assaults rose from 36 to 54.
Since the Trump administration didn't prosecute a single criminal FACE case to conclusion, anti-abortion extremists had every reason to believe they'd face few consequences for their crimes. But the FACE Act has a five-year statute of limitations.
In March 2022, the Department of Justice announced indictments for the Washington Surgi-Clinic invasion. It has since announced more than a dozen other prosecutions under the FACE Act. Idoni has been indicted in two others-one in Tennessee and one in Michigan. She faces a total of 33 years in prison.
Such tough criminal penalties for blocking access to reproductive healthcare have raised the ire of the political right. In fall 2023, Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) and Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah)
introduced bills to repeal the FACE Act in Congress. But the Washington Surgi-Clinic blockaders might not have to hold out hope for a legislative reprieve.
On Sept. 15, 2023, former President Donald Trump spoke at the annual Pray Vote Stand Summit. Though his remarks were devoid of many details about his governing plans if reelected, he did say this: "As many of you have heard, two weeks ago in an outrageous attack on Christians everywhere, the Stalinists in the Biden administration ... got a Washington, D.C., jury to convict ... pro-life activists who are now facing up to 11 years in prison. ... To reverse these travesties of justice, tonight I'm announcing that the moment I win the election I will appoint a special task force to rapidly review the cases of every political prisoner who's been unjustly persecuted by the Biden administration.
"I can ... sign their pardons or commutations on day one."
Amanda Robb wrote this article for Ms. Magazine.
Amanda Robb wrote this article for Ms. Magazine.
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