On Tuesday, The Daily Beast reported new details about Lauren Handy, the anti-abortion activist who was found with five fetuses in her home after authorities arrested her for obstructing patients for accessing a clinic in Washington, D.C.
Specifically, her group alleges that there were 110 more fetuses that they took from the facility — and gave burial rites. They also allege that their actions aren't really theft.
"At a crowded Tuesday press conference, activists — including Randall Terry, founder of the extremist anti-abortion group Operation Rescue — said they wished to set the record straight about the fetuses that made national headlines last week," reported Pilar Melendez. "'During the five days they were under my stewardship, the 115 victims of abortion violence were given funeral mass for upbaptized children and 110 … were given a proper burial in a private cemetery,' said Handy, the director of activism at the group Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising."
The five fetuses found in Handy's home, the group claims, were not buried because they supposedly had wounds that indicated a violent crime and they wanted to deliver them to the district medical examiner.
"Handy claimed that on March 25, she and Terrisa Bukovinac, her group’s founder and executive director, had gone to Washington Surgi-Clinic to protest abortions. There, they said, they found a medical waste truck driver and asked him if they could take one of the boxes he was loading outside, arguing that they were filled with 'dead babies' and promising to give them a 'proper burial,'" the report continued. "The driver’s employer, Curtis Bay Medical Waste Services, has denied the group’s account, stating that the employee took three boxes from the reproductive health center and delivered them to the group’s incineration facility. 'At no time did the Curtis Bay employee hand over any of these packages to the PAAU or other third party, and any allegations made otherwise are false,' the company added in a statement."
Handy faces federal charges for "conspiracy against rights," and lawsuits related to her efforts to block access to the clinic with her protest, which took place in 2020.
