A young, female pro-life leader was kicked by an abortion activist Sunday in Toronto, Canada, according to Campaign Life Coalition.
A video of the incident shows a young man high-kicking a woman as she records her conversation with him. The woman later identified herself as Campaign Life Coalition Youth Coordinator Marie-Claire Bissonnette.
The Daily Hive reports pro-life advocates gathered Sunday at the corner of Bloor and Keele streets in downtown Toronto for the annual Life Chain, a peaceful, prayer-filled event to publicly witness to the tragedy of abortion. The pro-life advocates said a single abortion activists showed up to counter-protest peacefully before the man arrived.
UPDATE: The assailant has been identified.
The report continues:
Bissonnette says she was assaulted by a man that afternoon.
She alleges that a man took out markers and defaced two of the group’s signs.
“After these acts of vandalism, he approached the pro-abortion demonstrator, evidently in order to seek her approval, which she appeared to deny him by discouraging his tactics,” she said. “At this point I took out my cell phone and began to record him, telling him that what he did was destruction of private property and it was against the law.” …
In the video, the man is seen “roundhouse-kicking” Bissonnette, and her phone drops to the ground as she asks for someone to call the police.
She said she later filed a report with police.
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On Wednesday morning, Campaign Life Coalition sent out a call for help online.
“PLEASE WATCH AND SHARE,” it posted on Twitter with a link to the video. “Our Youth Coordinator was assaulted on the weekend during #lifechain. If you have any tips on who he is or where he may be please call Toronto Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477. This violence against pro-lifers needs to STOP!”
The video of the incident is going viral with more than 300,000 views in 24 hours.
Bissonnette has indicated that she was not the only person targeted Sunday during the Life Chains. In Mississagua, she said someone walked up to a pro-life advocate from behind and poured paint over his clothes while he was praying.
LifeNews has reported about dozens of threats, vandalism and other violence against pro-life advocates in the past year. These range from threats against prominent pro-life politicians like U.S. Reps. Chris Smith, Cathy McMorris Rodgers and Steve Scalise to a Missouri sidewalk counselor who had a gun pointed at him.
In September, a popular conservative blogger was under police protection after she received rape and death threats because of a pro-life tweet. In June, a Florida man who volunteers at Planned Parenthood was arrested after he allegedly threatened to kill pro-life U.S. Rep. Brian Mast’s children. Then in August, someone threatened to rape and kill the family of a pro-life advocate with Operation Rescue.
Within the past month, two Republican party offices also have been targeted. One in Illinois was vandalized with spraypaint, while local authorities said someone intentionally set fire to another in Wyoming.
Students for Life also has documented more than 40 incidents of vandalism alone in the past five years against its pro-life students groups. An interactive map displays the places where its clubs have been victims of vandalism.
