The PAAU said in a statement Thursday night that it had received the embryos from an “informant” working at the Washington Surgi-Clinic, a DC abortion clinic, and had arranged for police to pick them up because they believed the embryos had been aborted illegally. The story goes on under the ad The clinic declined to comment, but its website says it performs abortions until the 27th week of pregnancy, which is at the end of the second trimester. Handy and other members of her team scheduled a press conference on Tuesday, where they said they would share Details. Ashan Benedict, executive assistant chief of DC police, told reporters Thursday that the embryos appeared to have been aborted “under DC law. [and] “There does not seem to be anything criminal in nature in this, other than how they got into this house.” On Friday, DC police spokesman Dustin Sternbeck said the matter “remains under investigation.” He said: “While there are still many questions, we can not give details at this point.” He said the origin of the embryos also remains part of this research. Sternbeck said DC police have not charged or arrested the fetuses. The story goes on under the ad Officials at the DC Medical Examiner’s Office declined to comment. Two knowledgeable DC officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to discuss an ongoing investigation, said the decision not to conduct an autopsy could be reversed if they received additional information. Randall Terry, a longtime national anti-abortion leader who works with Handy’s team, said activists were unaware of the circumstances of the abortions, but said that graphic images of fetuses circulating on social media on Friday evening were the relics taken from the Washington Surgery-Clinic. DC police and other officials declined to comment on whether the photos on social media were from embryos taken from the home. The story goes on under the ad DC and seven states do not have specific laws prohibiting abortion after a certain stage of pregnancy. Terry said activists wanted to investigate whether the clinic violated federal law, which limits the length of a procedure known as “intact dilation and extraction” and extends legal rights to abortion-surviving fetuses. Police in riot gear stormed a rally on Wednesday, removing hundreds of protesters by truck. Around the same time that police are flocking to the quiet side street of the residence, federal authorities announced the indictment against Handy and eight other people in a 2020 abortion clinic blockade with a chain and rope. They are facing federal civil rights charges related to the incident at the Surgi Clinic in Washington. The PAAU statement, released Thursday, included a March 30 letter from a California lawyer to DC officials saying “an entity” “had” embryos – the number in the statement was blackened – and wanted to “inform competent authorities… and request an investigation and forensic examination “. The story goes on under the ad The discovery of the fetuses caught the attention of Handy, who seems to have recorded her life protesting outside abortion clinics and research centers across the country on social media. In a Facebook post, the 28-year-old said she hails from Gloucester, Va., Who dropped out of college about 10 years ago to become a full-time abortion activist. In recent years, Handy has been a regular at the Planned Parenthood Clinic in Northeast Washington, DC, where she tries to prevent people from having an abortion. He has also protested several times outside a clinic in Baton Rouge, where he said he settled in 2018 before recently returning to Washington. He has been arrested several times in protests, including once in the District and once in Silver Spring, according to court records. The lawyers who represented Handy in these cases did not respond to messages requesting comment. On Facebook, he has also posted calls for money and other help for women he said have decided not to have abortions. “Setting for Momma T baby shower !!” reads a post dated February 20, 2021. “Socially distanced. Creative and cute. The baby and the mom are prospering. ” The story goes on under the ad Another longtime anti-abortion activist in the DC area, the Reverend Pat Mahoney, said Handy was being unfairly discredited. She and the team received some random embryos from the Surgi-Center, she said. “I feel that this story has been turned into a charge that Handy is somehow this creepy person holding embryos in her basement. “And it is nothing like that,” he said. As for the police who came to Hady’s house, “this was not a random search or advice from a strange person, but a coordinated, planned event.” She said the embryos were only found at the clinic last week and that the team may have inadvertently interacted with law enforcement to dispose of the remains. The story goes on under the ad The group said in a statement on Thursday that the fetuses each had “a funeral and a ‘naming ceremony’; with their bodies present”. Much of the country’s defense against abortion is driven by faith-based activism, and opposition to abortion is a priority for the Republican Party. But there are many smaller anti-abortion groups that identify with liberal positions on race, LGBTQ rights, and poverty. The PAAU website says it is “committed to radical participation, while at the same time magnifying the secular, feminist, liberal and LGBTQIA + voices in favor of life, especially those of people of color.” Three of the five members of the group are identified on the site as atheists, although Handy describes herself as a “universal anarcho-… who creates trans-inclusive spaces within the pro-life movement.” On her Facebook page, she included a selfie of herself in a face mask that reads: “Black lives matter from the womb to physical death.” The story goes on under the ad Mahoney said the anti-abortion movement has a history, especially in the 1970s and 1980s – when medical supplies were less stringent – of going to landfill clinics to search for fetal remains so they could do landfill services. Activists sometimes used the material to defend themselves. In 1992, Terry, who founded the large anti-abortion group Operation Rescue, was accused of an incident in which then-presidential candidate Bill Clinton showed a male fetus in a plastic container as Clinton left a New York hotel to jog. . Even if delayed abortions – as Haddy’s team claims happened in the case of the five fetuses – are very rare, Mahoney said, they are a significant number for the movement. The group’s statement raised questions about DC police, saying within a day that the abortions were legal. “We would argue, let’s do the autopsy. At least, the [D.C. police] must make the data public. I would not trust them if the police shot an African-American with just their speech. I want to see the results “. The story goes on under the ad Katie Watson, a bioethicist and professor at Northwestern University School of Medicine, said it was unlikely that a layman – like activists – could figure out just by looking at the remains of a fetus if it was born alive, which could make abortion a federal crime. . She also said that many women do not realize they are pregnant until the second trimester and that anti-abortion laws and restrictions deliberately make it more difficult for patients – 75% of whom are too poor to have the procedure – to have an abortion. “I want to repel what I think this idea of a later abortion comes with at this point. “In many ways, part of this group of patients is the predictable and natural product of abortion restrictions,” he said. He also described the activists’ use of the images as “extremely disrespectful”. “For me, what is horrible is the appropriation of other women’s fetal remains for a piece of political symbolism.” Dan Morse, Carol D. Leonnig, Ellie Silverman and Annys Shin contributed to this report.
