Sign the prayer pledge for nine pro-life rescuers facing a decade in prison.
Editor’s note: John Hinshaw is being held in federal custody at the Alexandria Detention Center in Virginia, along with six other pro-life activists for participating in a traditional pro-life rescue of the unborn at a late-term abortion center in Washington, D.C. They face a potential 11 years in prison as they await sentencing in May by pro-abortion Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, under charges of violations of the FACE Act and “conspiracy against rights.”
This article is the second part of a series by John Hinshaw looking at pro-life Republican “half-measures.” Read part one here.
WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) — As we continue with the unpleasant history of Republican half-measures in the face of the abortion holocaust, we move into the 1990s, where the Democrats’ abortionism comes into full view. And what a vivid blast of lurid colors they give us for their abortion position – in stark contrast with the beige “pro-life” Republicanism.
As the Clintons rose to power, they only appointed and promoted pro-abortion people (I dare you to find one pro-lifer) and at the 1992 Democratic convention they even silenced a sitting governor of Pennsylvania from addressing the convention because he was pro-life.
This was during the time that Republicans were blubbering about a “big tent” so no one would think they were a truly pro-life party. The media, as usual, inverted (in other words lied about) the positions and accused the Bush administration of having a “litmus test” on Roe v. Wade for their SCOTUS nominees while the Clinton’s had that exact litmus test and used it up and down the judicial line in the opposite direction. Previously cited Republican half-measure, Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, was promoted by the Clintons.
But the contrast between the abortion Democrats and “pro-life” Republicans became even clearer when Hillary Clinton and Janet Reno wrote a new federal law and passed it through a Democrat Congress in 1994. This was the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE). It was a gross violation of the Constitution, targeting a particular point of view the administration doesn’t agree with for federal prosecution and threatening years of imprisonment for peaceful, civil disobedience. From Thoreau to Dr. King, America had never seen this kind of attack.
Such is the Democrats’ commitment to abortion. They were determined to act on their #1 priority.
READ: EXCLUSIVE: Jailed pro-lifer paraded into courtroom fully shackled ahead of Michigan FACE Act trial
When Newt Gingrich, in historic fashion, flipped the U.S. House of Representatives in 1995 for the first time in nearly 50 years, Republicans never discussed repealing the FACE Act. They held the House for the next 10 years but never moved against FACE. The contrast is unmistakable.
In the 1990s, Republicans shifted the pro-life initiative to focus on late-term abortion in hopes of reframing the debate and potentially saving lives. This did produce some success, including the always delightful theater of recently deceased Joe Lieberman playing Hamlet – agonizing on the Senate floor over behavior he descried before voting FOR the behavior he had just descried (see Clinton impeachment and Clinton veto of partial birth abortion ban).
But as the initiatives of the Born Alive Infants Protection Act and Partial Birth Abortion ban were being carried into a Republican presidency where they would be enacted into law, the great pro-life legal scholar, Hadley Arkes, was, almost alone, pushing for the statutes to make explicit the scientific fact that the unborn child is fully human, biologically indistinct from all other humans – just younger.
He was also warning that if the Partial Birth Abortion prohibition did not have penalties attached with it, the law would be toothless and most likely to be ignored by the legal community. Mr. Arkes was not listened to in this regard and Republicans went, again, with half-measures.
READ: Jailed pro-lifer denounces IVF practices, calls on Republicans to defend sanctity of all unborn life
Now we come to the trial of pro-life rescuers in Washington, D.C., which will climax in our sentencing on May 14 and 15, 2024, facing 11 possible years of imprisonment. We have already served nine months. We come to this show trial of a corrupt legal system, because it ties together so many of the Republican half-measures which only hurt pro-lifers.
That our rescue and subsequent persecution occur during the hegemony of the deep and police state helps profile our case.
The deep state and the politicization (corruption) of federal law enforcement, of which we are victims, has a bigger stage in the 2024 presidential election. Indeed, the “Conspiracy Against Rights” law that threatens us with 10 years; incarceration is one of the charges leveled against President Donald Trump. It was passed in 1869(!) to fight the KKK!?!?
For the sake of this article, we will only mention the police state to highlight the pro-abortion infrastructure that defines Washington, D.C., and how it inflates the power of one elite judge.
To briefly summarize our case, we came together to confront “Dr.” Cesare Santangelo, who is on video admitting he regularly violates the Born Alive Infants Protection and who advertises late-term abortion over a wide area. This likely indicates partial-birth abortion practice. See #justiceforthefive for clarification. We sat down at a rescue, thinking we were preventing a federal crime.
Between the issuance of the SCOTUS’ Dobbs decision, overturning Roe v. Wade (6/22), and our trial (8/23) the Judge trying us, Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly publicly expressed her belief that a “right to abortion” might be found in the 13th amendment of the Constitution?!? So she believes that an amendment that guarantees that one person cannot treat another person as property actually gives a person the right to treat another person as property?!?.
Not only did Justice Sam Alito not find a right to abortion in the 13th Amendment in overturning Roe v. Wade, but Justice Blackmun didn’t find it there while writing Roe v. Wade?!?
Doubts began rising about getting a fair trial. The judge’s bias and behavior during the trial will be described in a later article, but a few highlights of her conduct: denial of every defense offered by our attorneys (we had five plausible defenses) followed by a directive that we could only defend against “access.”
This was followed by an extensive “prohibited word list” requested by the prosecutors and granted by the judge. You can guess what the words are: abortion, partial birth abortion, late-term abortion, etc. etc.
As I said, Kollar-Kotelly’s misconduct will be better covered in a focused article on her, but two actions that deserve mention here are these: When our defense attorneys sought to present the “necessity defense” that presents pro-life rescuers as trying to save lives, they cited the Born Alive Infants Protection. The judge dismissed this by saying that the Act itself did not squarely make the case for the baby to have personhood rights. While I believe her bias would have denied us any defense we chose, she is defended against appeal because of the mildness (half-measures) of the act.
When one of the defense witnesses testified that the Partial Birth Abortion prohibition applied throughout the country, including Washington, D.C., the judge disputed this and mocked the witness. This, the result of there being no case law of trying partial-birth abortionists – no teeth to the law!!!!!
READ: Jailed pro-lifer: Republican weakness on abortion is nothing new
So, to wrap up, our case has us:
- Tried under the FACE Law, which Republicans made no attempt to repeal even when in control of Congress.
- Tried by a judge who is herself a Republican half-measure.
- Denied a pro-life defense because a Republican “pro-life” statute was actually a half-measure.
- Tried by a judge who is backed by a legal community that disregards a federal law because it has no penalties for violating it.
I could go on here, referencing Republican “men without chests” like Mike Pence and Chris Christie (and others) who think this is the time to stand up for the FBI?… when the FBI has demonstrated it is the largest and most dangerous terrorist organization in the United States.
And the Republicans want pro-lifers to stand down?
How about standing up, guys????
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