Austin Beigel has spent years in the pro-life movement. In fact, he met his wife that way. So he’s no stranger to the kind of violent confrontations that are seemingly becoming commonplace during these kinds of rallies and protests.
Beigel, who is now working full-time for Created Equal, a pro-life advocacy organization, was attacked by a pro-abortion activist recently, just a few weeks before he graduated from Ohio State University.
During a phone interview Wednesday with Faithwire, Beigel said he was on the campus of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill as part of Created Equal’s “Road Trip for Life,” a pro-life campaign. Moments after setting up photos of preborn infants as well as graphic abortion images, Beigel said the woman confronted him and attacked him.
The woman, who was not identified, said she was triggered by graphic photographs. When the pro-lifer confirmed that he put up the photos she raced toward him with fists flying. He was punched in the face a number of times and was also hit in the stomach.
“F***ing terrible person,” she screamed. “You’re a terrible person. You — this is not okay. This is not okay. This is not okay. Shut the f**k up right now. This is wrong. This is triggering. You’re not an innocent human being. You’re a terrible person.”
Not long after footage of the encounter was published, Beigel took to Facebook to encourage his friends and followers to pray for the woman who attacked him. He said the fact he was able to respond the way he did is a result of the “attitude God has given me through his grace.”
“Faith is everything to my responsiveness to situations,” Beigel said. “I realize that there but by the grace of God go I. And without Christ’s grace upon my heart, I am her … I am believing those ridiculous things [about abortion].”
Beigel grew up in a Christian home, noting his interest in the pro-life cause was born out of an image he saw of an aborted infant when he was in high school. That photo, he recalled, “shook me to my core.”
These kinds of confrontations seem to be cropping up more often. In mid-April, a young woman shoved an elderly pro-life activist to the ground outside an abortion clinic in Louisville, the only one in the entire state of Kentucky. Much like Beigel, the 82-year-old Donna Durning responded in love. She said she has forgiven her alleged attacker, Janaya Alyce Gregory, and is asking others to pray for the 31-year-old woman.
“I believe that the lady who caused this injury needs prayers,” Durning said, “and I’m forgiving her and I would hope that people would also pray for her.”