Kansas woman arrested after allegedly striking pro-life teen ‘with fists’ to the head

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Aug 10, 2022 / 05:00 am

Grace Hartsock was knocking on doors to encourage Kansas citizens to vote for a pro-life amendment when, she says, she was attacked.

The 18-year-old from Austin, Texas — a rising freshman at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas — walked away from one house after encountering a woman who opposed the amendment. That is when she heard “yelling and cursing” coming from inside, she told CNA.

“As I was walking back towards the street, the woman’s adult daughter came out of the house, still yelling, and started following me,” Hatsock recalled of the July 31 incident in Leawood, Kansas. “She pushed me with both hands, and hit me with her fists.”

Students for Life Action, the pro-life group with which Hartsock was canvassing, claimed in a blog post that the woman “shoved Hartsock in the chest with both hands and began violently hitting her in the head with closed fists.” 

When Hartsock reached the end of the driveway, she said the woman threw a dinner roll at her and continued to follow her as she yelled “I hope you get raped” and “I hope you get run over by a car.”

Students for Life later shared a 5-second clip that it said showed the woman who assaulted Hartsock. In the video, a woman shouts “f*** you” as she sticks her middle finger in the air. Another woman, in the background, instructs her to “stop it!”

The audio also captures the panting of the person holding the camera.

Capt. Brad Robbins at the Leawood Police Department confirmed that an 18-year-old female contacted them about the incident on July 31 just after 2 p.m.

“She stated that an hour earlier she had been going door-to-door representing Students for Life,” he told CNA in a statement. “At one address in the 11200 block of Granada Lane the victim was advised they did not wish to discuss the issue. As she was walking away from the address, she was yelled at and then struck by a female resident.”

As part of the police investigation, Robbins said that a 37-year-old suspect was arrested and charged in Leawood Municipal Court with misdemeanor battery and released.

“While an arrest has been made, it is still consider[ed] an open investigation and we will not be releasing any additional details of the event,” he said.

Robbins said that the victim was not visibly injured.

While Hartsock had a headache after being hit in the head, the local emergency room confirmed that she suffered from no serious injuries, she said. She added that, at the time, she also felt “nervous and shaken up.”

She shared what she would tell her alleged attacker, if she had the opportunity.

“I would tell her that rather than being ‘pro-woman’ as the pro-abortion movement claims to be, she is showing the world with her actions just how anti-woman she really is,” she said. “This is the hypocrisy of the pro-abortion side. Rather than being pro-woman, they condone violence against pro-life women just because we disagree with their narrative.”

Rather than being discouraged, Hartsock said that the incident left her even more motiviated in her pro-life advocacy, adding that “we as pro-lifers need to be more courageous than ever in not backing down and standing up to defend the vulnerable women and children in our communities.”

A Catholic, she said the faith and science support her pro-life position.

“While I am a faithful Catholic, and the Catholic Church teaches that all human life is made in the image and likeness of God,” she said, “I am pro-life because science shows that life begins at conception, where a unique human being comes into existence.”

Hartsock’s alleged attack is not an isolated one, according to Autumn Schimmer, the project manager at Students for Life of America.

“I was punched outside of the Supreme Court in September of 2020 while protesting a NARAL rally that was being held opposing the nomination of Justice Barrett to the Supreme Court,” she told CNA of a protest held by a pro-abortion group. 

She called violent attacks on pro-life advocates a “growing concern,” from the recent attacks at pregnancy centers to threats targeting Students for Life President Kristan Hawkins. 

“What happened to Grace in Kansas is unfortunately becoming more common in a post-Roe America,” Schimmer said, referring to the 1973 Supreme Court decision that previously legalized abortion nationwide. “Pro-life advocates should be aware of the violent acts pro-abortion supports are willing to carry out, without being fully deterred from advocating for the preborn and their mothers.”