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

Federal brokers and detectives from the Madison police department are investigating a declare 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 within the early hours of Sunday, with a molotov cocktail thrown by means of a window, starting a small hearth, and graffiti spray-painted on an exterior wall. Nobody was harm.

In a statement 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 assault due to the organization’s anti-abortion stance, and demanded that related establishments throughout the US disband or face “increasingly extreme techniques”.

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

The Madison assault came days after the leaking of a supreme court docket draft ruling that would overturn its 1973 Roe v Wade decision and finish 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 were aware of the group’s claims of accountability, however cited the ongoing investigation for being unable to give more details.

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

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

At a press conference on Monday afternoon, the Madison PD and ATF brokers announced 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 to date been identified. Authorities were expected to offer an additional update on Tuesday afternoon.

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

“We support the sanctity of human life from the second of conception through pure dying. 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 a lot 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 accept that type of violence right here.”

An assault on an anti-abortion office is a relative rarity compared with attacks 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 facilities.

Arson, bombings, murders and acid attacks had been among more than 300 acts of extreme violence recorded by the Rand Corporation between 1973 and 2003, and in some of the heinous incidents, in 2009, Dr George Tiller, a Kansas abortion supplier, was shot useless in a church in Wichita.

In March, MS journal reported that the variety of brick-and-mortar abortion clinics nationwide had dropped precipitously, partly because of the fixed threat of violence against personnel. Six states, MS said, had only one abortion supplier, principally small, impartial operators who have been thought-about most in danger.

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