Pro-choice group claims arson attack on Wisconsin anti-abortion workplace | 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 attack on an anti-abortion office in Wisconsin.

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

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

“Wisconsin is the primary flashpoint, but we're all around the US, and we are going to concern no further warnings,” the statement stated, citing the violence of anti-choice groups who “bomb [abortion] clinics and assassinate medical doctors with impunity” as justification.

The Madison assault got here days after the leaking of a supreme courtroom draft ruling that would overturn its 1973 Roe v Wade resolution 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) told the Guardian that its brokers have been aware of the group’s claims of accountability, however cited the continued investigation for being unable to give more details.

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

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

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

The Madison police chief, Shon Barnes, said no suspects had up to now been identified. Authorities have been expected to offer an extra replace on Tuesday afternoon.

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

“We support the sanctity of human life from the moment of conception via natural loss of life. This includes opposing legislation that promotes the destruction of human life – which begins at conception – by 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 much stronger message of condemnation of this exercise from our Governor [and] from local regulation enforcement,” he wrote.

At a press conference on Monday, Evers referred to as the assault “a horrible incident”.

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

An assault 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 maximum violence recorded by the Rand Company between 1973 and 2003, and in one of the vital heinous incidents, in 2009, Dr George Tiller, a Kansas abortion supplier, 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 risk of violence in opposition to personnel. Six states, MS mentioned, had just one abortion provider, principally small, unbiased operators who were considered most at risk.

“Abortion clinics have been closing at an alarming charge,” the article mentioned. “Unbiased suppliers are probably the most vulnerable to anti-abortion assaults and violence directed at their workers.”