WASHINGTON—Pro-abortion protesters outside the Supreme Court attacked four pro-life Christian activists who showed up to counterprotest.
Priests for Life Director Bryan Kemper, Rev. Patrick Mahoney of the Christian Defense Coalition, Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust Director A.J. Hurley, and Right to Life East Texas founder Pastor Mark Lee Dickson walked together into the nearly 300-strong pro-abortion protest at about 8 p.m.
The protest was on the left side of a set of barricades that took up most of the center of the Supreme Court grounds.
First, an unidentified protester hit Kemper.
“The police came in after I was punched,” he said. “The person that punched me is no longer here that I can see.”
To protect them, police surrounded the four pastors, forming a line between them and the pro-abortion protesters.
The pro-abortion protesters alternated between chanting toward the men, mocking them, and telling each other to ignore them.
“Whose streets? Our streets!” the protesters chanted.
“Ignore these [expletives],” one protester said.
After surrounding the police line for about 15 minutes, pro-abortion protesters started walking to the right side of the central barricades. They were trying to move away from the men.
The pro-life men chose to follow. Still surrounded by police, they walked to the center until police refused to allow them to move further.
“U.S. Capitol Police are telling us we cannot go peacefully exercise our First Amendment rights,” Mahoney said.
Officers told the group that allowing them to approach the 300 pro-abortion protesters would put them in danger.
For several tense minutes, the four men stood surrounded by police while several protesters aggressively yelled at them.
“You’re instigating,” one pro-abortion protester said.
“You walked into the middle of a peaceful protest,” another said.
The crowd chanted “You don’t matter!” at the four pro-life protesters.
Several mocked the men.
The crowd also blamed the police.
“You’re instigating this,” one pro-life protester said to the police.
“I have every right to stay here,” one of the men said to the protesters.
Someone in the crowd threw a small object at the four men.
