Professional-choice group claims arson assault on Wisconsin anti-abortion office | 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 Motion in Madison was attacked in the early hours of Sunday, with a molotov cocktail thrown through a window, starting a small fire, 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 verify the group’s authenticity, Jane’s Revenge stated it launched the assault 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 first flashpoint, but we're all around the US, and we'll issue no additional warnings,” the statement stated, citing the violence of anti-choice teams who “bomb [abortion] clinics and assassinate docs with impunity” as justification.

The Madison attack got here days after the leaking of a supreme court docket draft ruling that will overturn its 1973 Roe v Wade decision and end 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 had been aware of the group’s claims of duty, however cited the continuing investigation for being unable to present more particulars.

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

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

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

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

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

“We assist the sanctity of human life from the moment of conception via pure loss of life. This contains opposing laws that promotes the destruction of human life – which begins at conception – through 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 much stronger message of condemnation of this exercise from our Governor [and] from native legislation 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: “As the state of Wisconsin, we don’t settle for that kind 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 services.

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

In March, MS journal reported that the number of brick-and-mortar abortion clinics nationwide had dropped precipitously, partly due to the fixed threat of violence in opposition to personnel. Six states, MS said, had only one abortion provider, principally small, unbiased operators who were thought of most at risk.

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