WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) – Abortion supporters attacked two pro-life activists sidewalk counseling outside of Planned Parenthood’s mega-abortion center in Washington, D.C. on Saturday. Despite video of the attacks, D.C. police will not press charges, the pro-life activists said.
Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising (PAAU) is an anti-abortion group that allies itself with liberals on other issues, including support for Black Lives Matter what it calls “trans rights,” according to its website. Also on Saturday, the group faced attacks at another location where they were handing out free supplies to help pregnant and parenting moms.
Abortion activists “assaulted” Terrisa Bukovinac and Michael Gribbin, “outside the DC Planned Parenthood” on Saturday morning, according to a news release from the group. Bukovinac is involved with PAUU and Gribbin was joining the group to help out with the activism event.
Bukovinac reported that “the incident began when a woman approached her and threw coffee in her face and hair. When Gribbin went to grab the coffee cup her male partner assaulted him,” the news release stated. The video also shows Bukovanic getting slapped in the face by the woman who threw coffee at her.
D.C. police refused to press charges, the anti-abortion activists said, despite video evidence (see below – warning: language) of the attack. LifeSiteNews contacted the D.C. police media relations office on Monday but was directed to a voicemail.
🚨Two proaborts decided to assault me and another pro-life defender outside Planned Parenthood in Washington DC this morning simply for standing on the sidewalk offering resources to families in crisis
The police refused to press charges @PAAUNOW pic.twitter.com/CEUzH4az5Y
— Terrisa Bukovinac (@Terrisalin) July 22, 2023
“Even as a progressive anti-abortion atheist I understand that the abortion industrial complex is responsible for a mass genocide which will require immense bravery to dismantle,” Bukovinac stated. “Pro-lifers must be committed to total non-violence to effectively challenge the institution of legal child killing around the globe.”
Dr. Michael New, a professor at the Catholic University of America and an eminent pro-life scholar and researcher, called the lack of charges “sad” but not surprising.
“Pro-lifers have [First Amendment] rights and no one should have to fear for their safety while sidewalk counseling,” New stated. “As someone who coordinates sidewalk counseling efforts outside the D.C. Planned Parenthood it is of paramount importance that our volunteers are safe. If Terrisa and Michael wish to file civil charges against their assailants, they would have my enthusiastic support.”
In August 2019, Gribbin was assaulted outside of the same Planned Parenthood, yet D.C. police also declined to press charges. Quinn Chasan, the Head of Customer Analytics for Google Cloud, hit Gribbin – on video – outside the abortion facility. Gribbin sued Chasan; Chasan responded to Gribbin’s lawsuit by countersuing for $5 million, accusing the pro-lifer of battery, having violated D.C. “hate crime” laws, and causing “severe and extreme pain, emotional distress, and mental anguish.”
In contrast, in 2020 two pro-lifers with Students for Life of America were arrested outside of the D.C. Planned Parenthood for beginning to write in chalk “Black Preborn Lives Matter.”
The attack outside of the D.C. Planned Parenthood is not the only trouble PAAU suffered Saturday in the nation’s capital.
Other individuals with the group set up a table in the Columbia Heights neighborhood to hand out free resources such as diapers and baby clothes as part of the first “ReproShareFair,” according to PAAU.
“Staff members Lauren Handy, Caroline Smith, Kristin Turner, and PAAU activist Miles went to the Columbia Heights community in Washington, DC, to set up a table and give out free material aid and information to passers by,” the group announced. “These free items included diapers, baby clothing, bibs, socks, wash clothes, bandaids, toothbrushes, period products, pregnancy tests, and more.”
However, two separate protesters arrived, including one who made “anti-black” statements to the street vendors, according to the group.
PAAU reported further:
So, after engaging with this woman for a period of time we decided it was best to ignore her. She turned her attention to locals by getting into their personal space and taunting them which made tensions boil over, as many of the people around were glad we were there. At that point she started knocking literature off of our table, crumpling it, and throwing it in the trash. She also threw our literature at one of our staff member’s faces. After this, she quickly flipped us off and walked away.
Members of the group have become the target of law enforcement as a result of their activism, too. For example, in October 2022, President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice charged some members of the group with allegedly violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act by blockading the entrance to the Washington Surgi-Clinic in 2020.
Lauren Handy, the group’s activism director, has been arrested at least 30 times for her pro-life work, including spending two weeks in solitary confinement.
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser also refused to call for an investigation into the five brutally murdered late-term babies discovered by pro-life activists in March 2022. Instead, she suggested that the DOJ should charge Handy with FACE Act violations, which it did just a few months later.
And in April 2023, FBI agents visited the childhood home of PAAU activist Elise Ketch. “I believe the FBI’s true motive behind their visit to my parents’ home was to intimidate me and my team,” Ketch said at the time.
On May 26, 2023, two pro-life sidewalk counselors were seriously injured in Baltimore after an assailant attacked them outside the city’s Planned Parenthood. The plate bone in the upper right cheek of one of the Catholic men who was attacked was completely fractured and he had to be taken to the University of Maryland shock trauma facility for treatment.