Pro-choice group claims arson attack 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 office in Wisconsin.

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

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

“Wisconsin is the primary flashpoint, but we are all around the US, and we'll problem no additional warnings,” the assertion said, citing the violence of anti-choice teams who “bomb [abortion] clinics and assassinate medical doctors with impunity” as justification.

The Madison attack got here days after the leaking of a supreme court docket draft ruling that might overturn its 1973 Roe v Wade resolution 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) told the Guardian that its agents were aware of the group’s claims of responsibility, however cited the continued investigation for being unable to provide more details.

The Madison police department said it was “aware of a gaggle claiming duty for the arson at Wisconsin Household 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 data and ideas associated to this case significantly and are working to vet each one.”

At a press conference on Monday afternoon, the Madison PD and ATF agents introduced a joint investigation into what it called 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 up to now been recognized. Authorities have been expected to present an extra replace on Tuesday afternoon.

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

“We support the sanctity of human life from the moment of conception by means of natural loss of life. This contains opposing laws that promotes the destruction of human life – which starts at conception – by means of abortion and other 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 much stronger message of condemnation of this exercise from our Governor [and] from native law enforcement,” he wrote.

At a press conference on Monday, Evers known as the assault “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 right 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 were amongst more than 300 acts of maximum violence recorded by the Rand Company between 1973 and 2003, and in one of the crucial heinous incidents, in 2009, Dr George Tiller, a Kansas abortion provider, was shot lifeless 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 stated, had just one abortion supplier, largely small, unbiased operators who had been thought-about most in danger.

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