Learn English – propped up on/ propped against – meaning and difference

When attack is a noun, the preposition on is preferred with locations, e.g.;

• attack on Pearl Harbour
• attack on Fort Sumter
• attack on (a) French church
• South Korea, US to simulate attack on nuclear facility (CNN)

If attack is used as verb, no preposition is necessary. All the examples below are taken from Google news

• ... attacked a homeless man
• ... attacked people at a shopping mall.
• seagull attacked customers
• ... attacked a humanitarian aid convoy

Compare the results for attack on Israel (blue), attacked Israel (red), attack Israel (green), and attack against Israel (yellow). All four are grammatical, but the first suggests that attacks on Israel are seen as acts of aggression aimed at a specific location rather than a nation. But it is a subjective point of view, so it would be interesting to hear from other native speakers.

In the example cited by the OP, the acid was thrown (at) or poured on the woman. The woman's body is considered a surface. The preposition on is used to express physical contact with a surface.

a horrific acid attack on a pregnant woman

The main meaning of against is in "opposition to", in the following examples, against could be substituted with on.

• UN officials condemn attacks against (an) aid convoy
• his attacks against a Hispanic federal judge
• more attacks against Israeli soldiers and civilians
• Pakistan has initiated a string of attacks against India including major ...

However, between attack somebody and attack against somebody, the first preposition is usually preferred. Ngram illustrates that attacked him (blue line) is far more common than attack against him (green line)

The whole ending of that paragraph is written in a poetic register, violating the rules of grammatical prose and even normal usage. There is no rule against trying to write in a poetic register except that others may find it obscure, pretentious, or both.

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower drives my red blood is meaningless if interpreted literally, but it is great poetry. Of course, few of us can match Dylan Thomas, who wrote the only decent villanelle in the English language, so, in my view, few of us should even try.

The meaning of that purple prose is What was needed -- what Emily needed -- was a woman emancipated from the pretences of tradition, a woman as strong as any father imagined by tradition, a woman willing to scorn the dictates of traditional deference, willing to speak out and to act.

Some can write like Dylan Thomas; most of us cannot. In my opinion, those of us who cannot should learn to write prose. As written, the quoted passage is facially absurd: at what time in the history of the world were women not able to speak. What is meant is that women would be punished, socially or physically, for doing certain things and so, quite rationally, were frequently unwilling to do them. The women who emancipated women were brave women who did what other women could have done but feared to do. I wear my clothes, not men's clothes.

EDIT: The quote about clothes (actually a slight mis-quote) is from the 19th century feminist doctor, Mary Edwards Walker, the only woman to have won the Cobgressional Medal of Honor, which was awarded for her work as a battlefield surgeon during the Civil War. I should have attributed it initially.