Beginning in early 2022, the Biden-Harris Department of Justice (DOJ) began waging a campaign of retaliation against pro-lifers — with the apparent goal of frightening them into silence. In May of 2021, the United States Supreme Court announced it would take on the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization — which had the potential to overturn Roe v. Wade and allow states to make their own laws surrounding abortion. The pro-abortion Biden-Harris DOJ sensed the very real threat to Roe, and turned its anger upon pro-lifers seeking to prevent abortions through on-site activism at abortion facilities.

The DOJ initiated FBI raids and dug years into the past to charge and arrest peaceful protesters.

The Supreme Court first heard oral arguments in Dobbs on December 1, 2021. While the case was still in the hands of the justices in late March 2022, a monumental and heartbreaking event took place that held the potential to expose the reality of abortion to millions of Americans and change hearts and minds across the nation.

Five days later, the wave of retaliation efforts against pro-life activists began.

At a Glance

• In March 2022, pro-lifers found the bodies of five babies aborted late in pregnancy. Five days later, nine pro-lifers were arrested for a protest that took place over a year earlier.
• In May 2022, the draft opinion of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization was leaked, showing that the Supreme Court was likely to overturn Roe v Wade. Immediately, pro-abortion advocates began carrying out violent attacks against pro-life organizations and churches.
• In September and October of 2022, the FBI staged armed raids at the homes of two pro-lifers whose children were present. Multiple pro-lifers have since been arrested and jailed for peaceful protests that took place as far back as three years prior. Arrests have continued into 2024.
• In December 2022, Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta admitted that Dobbs had increased “the urgency” of the DOJ’s efforts to ‘enforce’ “the FACE Act, to ensure continued lawful access to reproductive services.”

The Five
After 49 years, Roe v. Wade was on the chopping block, putting the abortion industry and its allies on edge.

On March 25, 2022, less than four months after the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Dobbs, pro-life activists went to Washington Surgi-Clinic, an abortion facility in Washington D.C., where there are no restrictions on abortion. Terrisa Bukovinac, founder and executive director of Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising (PAAU), and Lauren Handy, PAAU director of activism, were at the facility “to engage in anti-abortion advocacy.”

When they arrived, they saw a truck from Curtis Bay Medical Waste Services parked outside and noticed two large boxes marked with biohazard symbols. The truck’s driver confirmed that the boxes were from the abortion facility and gave the two activists permission to take the boxes. Inside were the remains of 110 aborted babies, mostly of first-trimester age. However, there were also the bodies of five babies in the boxes, whom experts have stated were likely old enough to have survived outside the womb.

One of the babies, whom activists named “Harriet,” had an incision on the back of her neck that experts believe may have indicated the possible use of the brutal and federally banned D&X abortion procedure (more commonly known as “partial-birth” abortion).

The pro-life activists ensured that the bodies were documented through photographic evidence, and arranged a funeral Mass for all 115 babies. The 110 younger children were given a respectful burial. The pro-lifers then searched for an independent pathologist to confirm how the five older babies might have died; they called the D.C. police to have the bodies picked up so their deaths could be investigated.

On March 29, arrangements were made for the Metropolitan Washington D.C. Police homicide unit to pick up the five babies from Handy’s apartment for forensic examination. Attorney Steve Cooley penned a letter that day to Chief Medical Examiner Francisco J. Diaz and Police Captain Carols Heraud of the Investigative Services Bureau Homicide Branch, stating, “I have been contacted by an entity that very recently came into possession of … fetuses. […] It appears some of the fetuses were a result of late-term abortion(s) or possibly live birth abortions.” It was less than 24 hours later that the arrests of peaceful pro-lifers began.

Knowing that the true story of these babies may sway opinions on abortion to the pro-life side, the media created a false narrative regarding activist Lauren Handy, claiming, “Officers were called to” her home and that “[p]olice had found five fetuses” in her apartment — deceptively leaving out the fact that it was Handy and the pro-lifers themselves who had called police.

The images of the five babies obtained from the Washington Surgi-Clinic — Harriet, Christopher X, Angel, Phoenix, and Holly — were kept under wraps by mainstream media outlets.

WUSA9 reporter Bruce Leshan, however, noted that the D.C. police planned to “continue to look at how the fetuses ended up [at the apartment] but not when or how they were aborted.”