Pro-life activists scuffle with pro-choice bystanders outside a Planned Parenthood in Washington DC, witness says
- Two pro-life activists, Terrisa Bukovinac and Mike Gribbin, were demonstrating outside a Planned Parenthood in Washington DC when a confrontation ensued.
- It is unclear how the fight started: a woman and a man challenged Bukovinac and Gribbin, and the man knocked Gribbin to the ground and punched him.
- Two Planned Parenthood staff members wearing orange t-shirts tried to pull them apart: Bukovinac later said police ‘refused to press charges’
Pro-life activists brawled with a couple walking their dog outside a Planned Parenthood in Washington D.C. last week, with one of the pro-life protesters thrown to the ground and punched, and police allegedly “refused to lodge a complaint”.
Terrisa Bukovinac and Mike Gribbin were outside the Carol Whitehill Moses Clinic on July 21 when a confrontation ensued.
The video shared on social media did not show how the confrontation started, but The Washington Times reported that a woman in a white shirt threw her coffee at pro-life protesters.
The fight escalated until the man began punching Gribbin, pinning him to the ground and punching him repeatedly.
Pro-life protester Mike Gribbin, in a red t-shirt, is seen being hit by an angry passerby on July 21
The pair fought as a Planned Parenthood employee in an orange t-shirt tried to pull them apart
The man’s wife, in a white shirt, also got into a fight with another woman at the scene
Group stood up and swore at each other before leaving: police investigating
Bukovinac describes himself on Twitter as “your friendly neighborhood pro-life progressive atheist”
He shouted that Gribbin had “assaulted my wife”.
Bukovinac said the woman “slapped me.”
Two Planned Parenthood workers dressed in orange t-shirts tried to calm the rival groups down, with one man telling them: “Gentlemen, please – it’s not worth anyone going to jail.”
The two parties eventually drifted apart.
Bukovinac tweeted: “Two abortion pros decided to assault me and another pro-life advocate outside of 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.”
A Metropolitan Police spokesman said the incident was still under investigation.
Bukovinac is the founder of Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising.
She said the catholic news agency that the altercation occurred when two people began “screaming at us and they were yelling at you (expletive)”, prompting Bukovinac to shout the same.
She says that one of these people told her: “Tell me that to my face.
“Why don’t you come here?” Bukovinac replied. “Next thing I know I had coffee all over me.
Gribbin told the website he tried to fend off his attacker, but was unsuccessful. He got involved when the cafe was launched.
“He swept my legs. I know he punched me after he knocked me down a second time and I was on my knees, then he punched me in the side of my rib cage,’ Gribbin said.
Bukovinac said she was also slapped in the face as her attacker tried to take her phone.
According to Gribbin, their attackers fled the scene before police arrived.
In a 2022 New York Times report, Bukovinac was considered a “puzzling” figure in the pro-life movement.
“A self-proclaimed feminist and atheist who argues that women who support anti-abortion legislation can also be promiscuous, she is the face of a modern anti-abortion campaign that understands that optics are everything,” it read.
In 2022, Bukovinac made national news when she and another activist, held a press conference claim that an abortion clinic gave them 115 largely overdue fetuses.
The couple said they took the fetuses in order to give them a proper burial.
