Pro-life activists brawl with pro-choice passersby outside a Washington DC Planned Parenthood, witness says

Pro-life activists scuffled with a couple walking their dog outside a Planned Parenthood in Washington DC last week, with one of the pro-life protesters knocked to the ground and punched, and police reportedly 'refused to press charges'.

Terrisa Bukovinac and Mike Gribbin were outside the Carol Whitehill Moses clinic on July 21 when a confrontation ensued.

Video shared on social media did not show how the confrontation began, but The Washington Times reported that a woman in a white shirt threw her coffee over the pro-life protesters. 

The scuffle escalated until the man began hitting Gribbin, slamming him to the ground and punching him repeatedly.

Pro-life protester Mike Gribbin, in the red t-shirt, is seen on July 21 being punched by an angry passerby

The two men scuffled as an orange t-shirted Planned Parenthood employee tried to separate them

The man's wife, in a white shirt, also scuffled with another woman on scene

The group stood and yelled expletives at each other before walking off: police are investigating

Bukovinac describes herself on Twitter as 'your friendly neighborhood progressive pro-life atheist'

He yelled that Gribbin had 'assaulted my wife'.

Bukovinac said that the woman had 'slapped me'.

Two Planned Parenthood workers in orange t-shirts attempted to calm the rival groups down, with a man telling them: 'Gentleman, please - it's not worth anybody going to jail.'

The two sides eventually walked away from each other.

Bukovinac tweeted: '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.'

A spokesman for Metropolitan police said the incident remains under investigation.

Bukovinac is the founder of Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising.

She told the Catholic News Agency that the altercation occurred when two people began 'were screaming at us and they were screaming [expletive] you,' prompting Bukovinac to shout the same back. 

She says one of those people said to her: 'Say that to my face.' 

'Why don't you come over here?,' Bukovinac responded. 'The next thing I know, I had coffee all over me. 

Gribbin told the website that he attempted to fend off his attacker but was unsuccessful. He got involved when the coffee was thrown. 

'He swept my legs. I know he was punching me after he threw me down for a second time and I was on my knees and then he was punching me in the side of my ribcage,' Gribbin said. 

Bukovinac said that she was also slapped in the face as her attacker attempted to take her phone from her. 

According to Gribbin, their attackers fled the scene before the police arrived. 

In a 2022 New York Times feature, Bukovinac was referred to as a 'baffling' figure in the pro life movement. 

'A self-proclaimed feminist and atheist who claims that women who support anti-abortion legislation can be promiscuous, too, 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 a fellow activist, held a press conference to claim that an abortion clinic had given them 115 fetuses that were largely late-term. 

The pair said that they had taken the fetuses in order to give them a proper burial.