MOUNT VERNON, Ohio (LifeSiteNews) — A pro-abortion canvasser for a radical amendment could face criminal charges after she allegedly assaulted a 71-year-old retired college professor outside of a CVS.

Professor Joyce Miller told LifeSiteNews via email that she has seen canvassers for the proposed Right to Reproductive Freedom with Protections for Health and Safety Amendment before, but this time was different, as she was assaulted by a canvasser working to collect petition signatures to get the amendment on the ballot.

READ: Pro-life leaders warn radical Ohio abortion amendment ‘even more dangerous’ than previously feared

The chemistry professor at Mount Vernon Nazarene University said on June 26 she was going into CVS when two women approached her and asked her if she was registered to vote. She had a similar conversation on Mother’s Day while on a bike trail.

“Both times, my part of the conversation started by saying that the term ‘Reproductive Rights’ is the wrong term and that I am for reproduction but what this petition is for is NOT reproduction,” Professor Miller told LifeSiteNews. The activists “did not have permission to be there and the CVS manager did not know that she was there asking for signatures.”

The situation turned violent when she tried to show them statistics about how black babies are more likely to be aborted than white babies. Her alleged assailant is black. The attack happened after Miller went into the store and looked up statistics.

“The first website that came up was data from 2020 posted by the Kaiser Family Foundation,” Miller said.

“I went outside with the website on my phone and made sure that I had a soft tone in my voice, I said, ‘Sweetie, I want to show you something.’ She said she didn’t want to see anything and knocked the phone out of my hand onto the concrete sidewalk. She started using the F-bomb repeatedly and told me to get out of her face. I took her words literally, and said I wasn’t in her face since I was about 2 feet away.”

READ: US day of mourning to commemorate 20 million black lives lost to abortion

Miller said she stepped back further and told the activist that she did not want to see more black babies killed. The assailant “said about five times that she was going to break me and pushed my arm twice,” Miller said.

The canvasser said she was not from around the area and that it was “her job” to be there. Miller warned her that her husband, a veteran, was nearby in the car.

It turned out that there had frequently been problems with the pro-abortion canvasser.

“She said that she didn’t care who was with me and she then hit me hard in the face. My husband then got out of the car and was talking on the phone,” Miller said.

Her husband called the police, and following instructions, followed the girl to the Kroger grocery store across the street where law enforcement met with her. Police also reviewed the video at CVS.

“The one police officer told me right away that there had been problems with people trying to get signatures,” Miller said. “We later found out that there had been people removed from Walmart in Mount Vernon by the police after they refused to leave when the security at Walmart asked them to leave because the policy is to not allow any solicitation on Walmart property.”

“We believe (but do not know for certain) them to be the same group of people” Miller said.

READ: Ohio’s radical abortion amendment submits enough signatures to reach November ballot

Miller said x-rays showed that her nose was not broken, but several weeks later it is still sore. The police took a report and she said the city’s prosecutor, P. Robert Broeren, is still considering whether to file charges.

“The Office of the Law Director does not comment on cases that have been submitted for review,” Broeren told LifeSiteNews via email on Tuesday.

LifeSiteNews also emailed the two groups pushing the amendment, Ohioans for Reproductive Freedom and Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights, and asked if they were aware of the incident, if they planned to investigate, and what the vetting and training process is like for canvassers. Neither group responded to a Tuesday morning inquiry.

Miller said she does not regularly engage in pro-life outreach. But as an academic, she wanted simply to teach the girls and engage in conversation.

“I am a retired professor so my tendency to teach and inform was my primary motivation,” Miller said.

“My life has been one of academia where one discusses ideas and facts, but I met someone whose lifestyle is totally different from that,” she said.

Abortion activists have a history of violence

The assault on Professor Miller is unfortunately part of a long history of attacks from abortion activists, particularly since May 2022, when someone leaked the Supreme Court opinion that reversed Roe v. Wade. The violence includes an attempted assassination of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, frequent protests outside of the homes of justices, and repeated destruction of pro-life organizations.

LifeSiteNews also recently covered the assault of an 83-year-old pro-life woman in Maryland on July 8.

READ: Pro-family group warns Ohio abortion amendment would end parental consent for child ‘transitions’

Attacks have happened elsewhere, including an attack on two pro-lifers outside of a Baltimore Planned Parenthood in May.

Also in May, a Michigan man who shot a pro-life volunteer was sentenced to just 100 hours of community service. “On May 23, Judge Suzanne Hoseth Kreeger ordered Richard Harvey to serve 100 hours community service and gave him a suspended jail sentence of two months and a delayed sentence of one year on probation for shooting,” LifeSiteNews previously reported.