Pro-choice group claims arson attack on Wisconsin anti-abortion workplace | Wisconsin

Federal agents and detectives from the Madison police department are investigating a claim by a pro-choice group that it was behind a weekend arson attack on an anti-abortion office in Wisconsin.

The headquarters of Wisconsin Household Motion in Madison was attacked in the early hours of Sunday, with a molotov cocktail thrown by way of a window, beginning a small fire, and graffiti spray-painted on an exterior wall. Nobody was damage.

In a statement reported on Tuesday by the Lincoln Journal Star, which mentioned it was unable to confirm the group’s authenticity, Jane’s Revenge stated it launched the attack because of the group’s anti-abortion stance, and demanded that similar establishments across the US disband or face “increasingly extreme tactics”.

“Wisconsin is the first flashpoint, however we are all over the US, and we are going to situation no further warnings,” the assertion mentioned, citing the violence of anti-choice groups who “bomb [abortion] clinics and assassinate medical doctors with impunity” as justification.

The Madison attack came days after the leaking of a supreme courtroom draft ruling that may overturn its 1973 Roe v Wade choice and end nearly half a century of constitutional abortion protections.

On Tuesday, a spokesperson for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) advised the Guardian that its brokers have been conscious of the group’s claims of duty, but cited the ongoing investigation for being unable to provide extra particulars.

The Madison police department stated it was “aware of a group claiming duty for the arson at Wisconsin Family Motion and are working with our federal partners to find out the veracity of that claim”.

It urged anybody with relevant info to make contact, saying: “We take all information and ideas related to this case critically and are working to vet each one.”

At a press convention on Monday afternoon, the Madison PD and ATF brokers announced a joint investigation into what it known as an “abortion extremism case involving an arson and graffiti assault of a pro-life advocacy office in Madison”.

The Madison police chief, Shon Barnes, said no suspects had up to now been recognized. Authorities were expected to give an extra update on Tuesday afternoon.

In a values assertion on its website, Wisconsin Family Motion (WFA) describes itself as a Judeo-Christian group devoted to “strengthening, preserving, and selling marriage, household, life and liberty.

“We support the sanctity of human life from the moment of conception by way of natural dying. This includes opposing legislation that promotes the destruction of human life – which starts at conception – through abortion and different means,” it says.

Jack Hoogendyk, the WFA board chairman, attacked the response to the attack in a tweet posted on Tuesday morning, singling out Wisconsin’s Democratic governor, Tony Evers, and Madison PD detectives.

“We have to see a a lot stronger message of condemnation of this activity from our Governor [and] from local regulation enforcement,” he wrote.

At a press convention on Monday, Evers called the assault “a horrible incident”.

Calling for a full investigation and arrests, he added: “Because the state of Wisconsin, we don’t accept that kind of violence here.”

An assault on an anti-abortion office is a relative rarity compared with assaults on abortion clinics and providers. In 2019, the Guardian reported on an “alarming escalation” in picketing, vandalism and trespassing by anti-abortion activists at medical facilities.

Arson, bombings, murders and acid attacks have been among more than 300 acts of maximum violence recorded by the Rand Company between 1973 and 2003, and in some of the heinous incidents, in 2009, Dr George Tiller, a Kansas abortion supplier, was shot dead in a church in Wichita.

In March, MS journal reported that the number of brick-and-mortar abortion clinics nationwide had dropped precipitously, partly due to the fixed menace of violence in opposition to personnel. Six states, MS said, had only one abortion supplier, mostly small, independent operators who have been considered most at risk.

“Abortion clinics have been closing at an alarming rate,” the article stated. “Unbiased providers are probably the most weak to anti-abortion assaults and violence directed at their workers.”