Joan Bell

Joan Andrews Bell, 76, is one of the most prominent figures in the American pro-life movement, having been arrested more than 200 times and served more than six years in prison over decades of clinic blockade activism stretching back to the 1980s, when her extended imprisonment in Florida helped fuel the Operation Rescue movement. On October 22, 2020, she was among ten defendants who participated in a coordinated blockade of the Washington Surgi-Clinic, a reproductive health clinic in Washington, D.C. Along with co-defendants Lauren Handy, Jonathan Darnel, Herb Geraghty, Heather Idoni, Jean Marshall, John Hinshaw, William Goodman, Paulette Harlow, and Jay Smith, Bell traveled to Washington to take part in what the group's leaders — Handy and Darnel — had organized as a "historic" rescue, livestreamed on Facebook. The defendants used force and physical obstruction to blockade two clinic entrances using their bodies, furniture, chains, and ropes, preventing staff and patients from accessing the facility. A clinic nurse was injured during the group's forced entry; one patient had to climb through a receptionist window to access the clinic, and another was left lying in the hallway outside in physical distress. Bell was convicted at trial in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia of conspiracy against rights (18 U.S.C. § 241) and violation of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE Act, 18 U.S.C. § 248). Her conviction came in September 2023 in the second of three separate trials in the case, alongside co-defendants Jean Marshall and Jonathan Darnel.