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

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

The headquarters of Wisconsin Household Motion in Madison was attacked in the early hours of Sunday, with a molotov cocktail thrown via a window, beginning a small fire, and graffiti spray-painted on an exterior wall. No person was hurt.

In a press release reported on Tuesday by the Lincoln Journal Star, which said it was unable to verify the group’s authenticity, Jane’s Revenge mentioned it launched the assault due to the organization’s anti-abortion stance, and demanded that comparable establishments throughout the US disband or face “increasingly extreme ways”.

“Wisconsin is the first flashpoint, but we're all around the US, and we'll difficulty no additional warnings,” the statement stated, citing the violence of anti-choice groups who “bomb [abortion] clinics and assassinate docs with impunity” as justification.

The Madison attack got here days after the leaking of a supreme court draft ruling that might overturn its 1973 Roe v Wade choice 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) advised the Guardian that its agents have been conscious of the group’s claims of responsibility, but cited the continued investigation for being unable to present more particulars.

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

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

At a press conference 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 attack of a pro-life advocacy workplace in Madison”.

The Madison police chief, Shon Barnes, mentioned no suspects had up to now been identified. Authorities have been expected to provide a further replace on Tuesday afternoon.

In a values assertion on its web site, Wisconsin Family Action (WFA) describes itself as a Judeo-Christian group dedicated to “strengthening, preserving, and promoting marriage, household, life and liberty.

“We help the sanctity of human life from the second of conception by means of pure demise. This contains opposing laws that promotes the destruction of human life – which starts at conception – by way 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 have to see a a lot stronger message of condemnation of this exercise from our Governor [and] from native regulation enforcement,” he wrote.

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

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

An attack on an anti-abortion workplace is a relative rarity compared 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 facilities.

Arson, bombings, murders and acid assaults had been amongst greater 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 provider, was shot dead in a church in Wichita.

In March, MS magazine reported that the variety of brick-and-mortar abortion clinics nationwide had dropped precipitously, partly due to the constant threat of violence towards personnel. Six states, MS said, had only one abortion supplier, principally small, impartial operators who had been thought of most in danger.

“Abortion clinics have been closing at an alarming fee,” the article said. “Independent suppliers are essentially the most susceptible to anti-abortion assaults and violence directed at their workers.”