Politics

Pro-Life Dem Launches Presidential Bid Outside Abortion Clinic Where Activists Were Arrested

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WASHINGTON — Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising (PAAU) founder Terrisa Bukovinac announced a bid to challenge President Joe Biden in the Democratic primary Thursday outside the abortion clinic where five pro-life activists were recently convicted for blocking it.

Bukovinac said she is running to “be a voice for the voiceless” outside the Washington Surgi-Clinic in Washington, D.C. A jury convicted Lauren Handy, PAUU’s director of activism, and four others on Aug. 29 under the Freedom of Access To Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act for entering and blocking access to the clinic in 2020.

“Pretending like millions of pro-life Democrats like myself don’t exist isn’t a strategy. The right to life must be protected at every age, everywhere,” she said. “And that is why I am running for president of the United States.”

Sixty percent of Democrats do not think states should allow abortion past 15 weeks, according to a June 2022 Harvard-Harris poll.

Top issues on Bukovinac’s platform include abortion, economic justice, racial justice, criminal justice reform and environmental justice, according to her campaign website.

“We are being misrepresented by extremist party leadership who support abortion until birth for any reason, when a good portion of Democrats do not support that,” Kristen Turner, corporate secretary for Bukovinac’s campaign and PAUU director of community organizing told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “We have a big grassroots network of activists who have already been involved in the pro-life issue and other progressive issues, like animal rights, environmental activism, Medicare for all.”

As a member of Generation Z, Turner said she has “never been confident voting for any candidate. “If I agree with them on the abortion issue, then I disagree with them on a litany of other issues, but if I agree with them on everything else, then I can’t in good conscience support them because they are supporting the mass killing of children,” she said.

PAAU activists found the bodies of 115 aborted babies in toxic waste containers from the Washington Surgi-Center in 2020, including five in the third trimester, according to Live Action. Pro-life advocates who previously spoke with the DCNF said the city has failed to take action since the bodies were turned over to the police over a year ago.

Bukovinac promised her campaign would not take money from the fossil fuel industry or Planned Parenthood’s “blood money.”

Several passersby and protesters yelled from the side, with one spitting toward the cameras and another giving Bukovinac and her supporters the middle finger from her car window as she drove past the clinic. Students from the nearby George Washington University gathered across the street to watch.

“I’m not running to win,” Bukovinac said. “I’m running to be a voice for the voiceless.”

“Any FCC [Federal Communications Commission] TV station is required to run the ads of all federal candidates,” she said.