Pro-choice group claims arson assault on Wisconsin anti-abortion office | Wisconsin

Federal brokers 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 workplace in Wisconsin.

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

In an announcement reported on Tuesday by the Lincoln Journal Star, which stated it was unable to verify the group’s authenticity, Jane’s Revenge said it launched the attack due to the organization’s anti-abortion stance, and demanded that similar institutions throughout the US disband or face “increasingly excessive ways”.

“Wisconsin is the first flashpoint, however we are all over the US, and we'll difficulty no further warnings,” the statement stated, citing the violence of anti-choice groups who “bomb [abortion] clinics and assassinate doctors with impunity” as justification.

The Madison attack got here days after the leaking of a supreme courtroom draft ruling that will overturn its 1973 Roe v Wade choice and finish virtually half a century of constitutional abortion protections.

On Tuesday, a spokesperson for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) informed the Guardian that its brokers have been aware of the group’s claims of responsibility, however cited the continued investigation for being unable to offer extra details.

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

It urged anybody with related data to make contact, saying: “We take all information and suggestions associated to this case severely and are working to vet each one.”

At a press conference on Monday afternoon, the Madison PD and ATF agents 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, said no suspects had up to now been identified. Authorities had been expected to offer an additional replace on Tuesday afternoon.

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

“We help the sanctity of human life from the moment of conception by means of pure death. This consists of 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 attack in a tweet posted on Tuesday morning, singling out Wisconsin’s Democratic governor, Tony Evers, and Madison PD detectives.

“We need to see a much stronger message of condemnation of this activity from our Governor [and] from native law enforcement,” he wrote.

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

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

An attack 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 services.

Arson, bombings, murders and acid assaults were among greater than 300 acts of utmost violence recorded by the Rand Corporation between 1973 and 2003, and in one of the heinous incidents, in 2009, Dr George Tiller, a Kansas abortion provider, was shot useless in a church in Wichita.

In March, MS magazine reported that the number of brick-and-mortar abortion clinics nationwide had dropped precipitously, partly due to the constant menace of violence towards personnel. Six states, MS said, had just one abortion supplier, largely small, impartial operators who had been thought-about most at risk.

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