Pro-life ally: Pro-abortion assault response 'troubling'; Trump's Planned Parenthood funding cut 'great step'

Yahoo

17-05-2025

Astonishing footage of a woman assaulting a pro-life activist stunned the internet in early April, when the young advocate was conducting man-on-the-street interviews in New York City before being attacked by a pro-abortion subject.
Savannah Craven Antao was assaulted by a woman who consented to an on-camera conversation regarding abortion issues.
"Savannah was having these conversations," Lila Rose, founder and president of Live Action, a pro-life anti-abortion nonprofit organization, told Fox News Digital. "One of them obviously went really south in that the woman that she was speaking with certainly engaged her, seemed pretty friendly but ultimately ended up getting very angry."
Pro-life Activist Assaulted, Bloodied During Street Interview About Abortion
A video captured by Antao's husband, the cameraman, caught the woman, Brianna J. Rivers, 30, throwing sucker punches. Rivers was later arrested on one count of second-degree assault, according to a report by the New York Post.
Antao was left bleeding and in need of stitches. She was taken to the emergency room for treatment.
Read On The Fox News App
"This woman kind of just marched off yelling profanities," Rose said. "You can't just go punching and assaulting people and sending them to the emergency room for stitches."
The response by social media users was divided as some submitted comments in favor of the assaulter, while others were horrified by the attack and feared for their own safety as pro-lifers.
'Abortion Pill' Found To Have 'Severe Adverse Effects' For 1 In 10 Women, Study Finds
"It was really troubling to see the response by some, not by all, but by some people," Rose said. "There were again people that supported abortion who said basically Savannah had what was coming to her. How dare she talk to people about this issue? She's going to get hit in the face. As if physical violence for a conversation is somehow justified."
However, Rose is hopeful that basic discourse with restraint and without physical violence is still valued among Americans.
"There is, I think, a growing group of people who think that violence against people you disagree with politically is okay," Rose said. "And particularly who, because they support the violence of abortion, they think that it's okay then to be violent to people that are born, too, who you disagree with."
Abortion issues, a discussion point which has gained inconsistent notoriety among both Republicans and Democrats, were a focal point of the 2024 presidential elections where President Donald Trump ran as a pro-life advocate.
Abortion On Demand: These 6 States Allow Women To Get Pregnancy-ending Drugs By Phone Or Online
In late March, President Trump withheld tens of millions of dollars in Planned Parenthood funds for possible violation of civil rights laws, according to reports.
"I thought this was a great step in the right direction," Rose said. "Planned Parenthood claims that they are about planning parenthood, but they do the exact opposite. They destroy parenthood."
"The fact that the Trump administration has removed some funding, I think, is a very positive step. The reality is that, though, the recent action by the Trump administration is only, we're talking about the tens of millions of dollars when there's $700 million that Planned Parenthood is receiving. This is a small step forward but what we need to see from the federal branch is more responsibility and accountability to stop funding abortion providers."
In 2024, it was reported that "an estimated 1,038,000 abortions were provided by clinicians in states without total bans in 2024," according to the Guttmacher Institute, a non-governmental organization funded, in part, by Planned Parenthood.
Dems Will Make State Sanctuary For Kids' Gender Transitions, Abortion Over Gop Protest
Among those who obtained abortion care in 2021-2022, 53% of them paid out of pocket and 30% used Medicaid to fund their treatments, according to the source.
"A common rebuttal from, certainly, pro-abortion Democrats, is saying, 'Well, we're not funding taxpayer abortions. We're just taxpayer-funding abortion providers and the reality is the money is fungible,'" Rose said.
"Planned parenthood is billing Medicaid and getting government funds for basically all of their other operational expenses and many other of their procedures that ultimately prop up their abortion business."
Medication abortions made up 63% of the clinician-provided abortions in 2023, according to Guttmacher.
"We need to see the abortion pill, which lands 1 out of every 10 women that take it with serious health consequences including emergency room visits," Rose said of the pill, mifepristone, used in combination with another medication, misoprostol, to terminate pregnancies.
"We should see that dangerous drug pulled from the market."
In late April, a study conducted by the Ethics & Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., revealed "severe adverse effects" for nearly 11% of women, more than 1 in 10, who used the abortion drug.
"No taxpayer money should be going to them," Rose said. "They should be shut down."Original article source: Pro-life ally: Pro-abortion assault response 'troubling'; Trump's Planned Parenthood funding cut 'great step'