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 assault on an anti-abortion office in Wisconsin.

The headquarters of Wisconsin Household Action in Madison was attacked within the early hours of Sunday, with a molotov cocktail thrown by means of a window, starting a small fireplace, and graffiti spray-painted on an exterior wall. Nobody was hurt.

In an announcement reported on Tuesday by the Lincoln Journal Star, which mentioned it was unable to verify the group’s authenticity, Jane’s Revenge stated it launched the assault due to the group’s anti-abortion stance, and demanded that comparable establishments throughout the US disband or face “more and more excessive tactics”.

“Wisconsin is the first flashpoint, but we are everywhere in the US, and we will difficulty no additional warnings,” the statement said, citing the violence of anti-choice groups who “bomb [abortion] clinics and assassinate docs with impunity” as justification.

The Madison assault got here days after the leaking of a supreme court draft ruling that will overturn its 1973 Roe v Wade decision and end almost half a century of constitutional abortion protections.

On Tuesday, a spokesperson for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) instructed the Guardian that its agents have been aware of the group’s claims of responsibility, however cited the ongoing investigation for being unable to offer more particulars.

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

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

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

The Madison police chief, Shon Barnes, said no suspects had to this point been recognized. Authorities had been expected to give an additional replace on Tuesday afternoon.

In a values statement on its website, Wisconsin Household Action (WFA) describes itself as a Judeo-Christian group devoted to “strengthening, preserving, and selling marriage, family, life and liberty.

“We support the sanctity of human life from the second of conception via natural demise. This includes opposing laws that promotes the destruction of human life – which starts at conception – by means of abortion and different means,” it says.

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

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

At a press conference on Monday, Evers called the attack “a horrible incident”.

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

An attack on an anti-abortion office is a relative rarity in contrast with attacks on abortion clinics and suppliers. In 2019, the Guardian reported on an “alarming escalation” in picketing, vandalism and trespassing by anti-abortion activists at medical amenities.

Arson, bombings, murders and acid assaults had been amongst more than 300 acts of utmost violence recorded by the Rand Corporation between 1973 and 2003, and in one of the most heinous incidents, in 2009, Dr George Tiller, a Kansas abortion supplier, was shot lifeless in a church in Wichita.

In March, MS magazine reported that the variety of brick-and-mortar abortion clinics nationwide had dropped precipitously, partly because of the fixed threat of violence against personnel. Six states, MS stated, had just one abortion provider, largely small, impartial operators who have been thought of most at risk.

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