Mom Says Daughters Left Shaken After Democratic Rep Accosted, Filmed Them Outside Planned Parenthood

• Democratic Pennsylvania state Rep. Brian Sims filmed himself yelling at people praying outside a Planned Parenthood.
• Ashley Garecht, the mother of two girls Sims filmed, said in an interview with The Daily Caller News Foundation that Sims’s behavior left her daughters and their friend shaken.
• The group was praying outside the Planned Parenthood during the Thursday before Easter.

The mother of two girls Democratic Pennsylvania state Rep. Brian Sims filmed said he targeted her daughters and their friend with anger, leaving them shaken after he offered a reward for their information in a video posted to social media.

Ashley Garecht said she had been to the southeastern Pennsylvania Planned Parenthood about five times before the incident took place. On Holy Thursday of Easter weekend, she brought her 13- and 15-year-old daughters and their friend with her to pray outside the abortion clinic.

Garecht told The Daily Caller News Foundation Sims approached her and her children twice, the first time without a camera, but “yelling pretty aggressively” and focusing mainly on the teenaged girls. Garecht said she repeatedly stepped between him and the girls and asked him not to speak to them.

“We weren’t trying to talk to anyone coming in or out of the clinic,” she told TheDCNF. “In candor, what concerned me was that he was yelling mostly at the girls.”

She said Sims left for about 10 minutes and returned with a camera as Garecht and the three girls were preparing to leave. He then proceeded to film the girls and encourage viewers to send him information on them.

“What we’ve got here is a bunch of … pseudo-Christian protesters who’ve been out here shaming young girls for being here,” Sims said in the video as he filmed Garecht and the three girls, before offering a reward for anyone who could provide their information.

“So, here’s the deal, I’ve got $100 to anybody who will identify these three, and I will donate to Planned Parenthood,” Sims said in the video.

Garecht said the Pennsylvania state representative was not interested in a dialogue, although she repeatedly tried to tell him their purpose at the Planned Parenthood and to ask him to leave them alone.

“We are really here just to pray for these babies and to pray for these women,” Garecht said she told Sims.

The teenagers were shaken by the incident, but Garecht’s older daughter and her daughter’s 15-year-old friend said Sims’s behavior was something they had already experienced at the March for Life earlier in 2019.

“That was nothing compared to what people screamed at us at the March for Life,” they told Garecht after the incident.

Meanwhile, Garecht is thankful for the “overwhelmingly positive” support of friends, family and other pro-lifers she has received and wants supporters to donate to a GoFundMe her husband set up for the ProLife Union of Greater Philadelphia.

Proceeds donated to the GoFundMe go directly to the organization, Garecht said. The GoFundMe has a goal of $100,000 and has raised more than $6,000 since it was created Monday.

“It’s bad enough that a grown man would be trying to dox three teenage girls,” Joe Garecht wrote in the description on the GoFundMe page. “It’s even worse that he is an elected official.  I’ve got two responses to these despicable actions by “Representative” Sims: First, Brian, if you have a problem with my wife and daughters praying outside of an abortion clinic, you can come and see me.”

“Second, I have a challenge for the pro-life community,” Garecht’s husband wrote. “Rep. Sims offered $100 to anyone who would identify these teenage girls for him. Instead of $100, let’s join together to donate $100,000 to the pro-life movement.”

Sims’s office did not respond to requests for comment from TheDCNF.

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