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

Federal agents and detectives from the Madison police division 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 within the early hours of Sunday, with a molotov cocktail thrown by a window, beginning a small fireplace, and graffiti spray-painted on an exterior wall. No person was harm.

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

“Wisconsin is the primary flashpoint, however we are all around the US, and we will issue 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 assault got here days after the leaking of a supreme courtroom draft ruling that may overturn its 1973 Roe v Wade determination 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) informed the Guardian that its brokers had been conscious of the group’s claims of accountability, but cited the continuing investigation for being unable to offer more details.

The Madison police division mentioned it was “aware of a bunch claiming responsibility for the arson at Wisconsin Household Action and are working with our federal partners to determine the veracity of that claim”.

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

At a press convention on Monday afternoon, the Madison PD and ATF brokers 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, mentioned no suspects had to date been identified. Authorities were expected to offer 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 assist the sanctity of human life from the moment of conception through natural dying. This consists of 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 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 a lot 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 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 here.”

An attack on an anti-abortion office 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 have been among greater than 300 acts of maximum violence recorded by the Rand Company between 1973 and 2003, and in one of the most heinous incidents, in 2009, Dr George Tiller, a Kansas abortion provider, was shot dead in a church in Wichita.

In March, MS magazine reported that the number of brick-and-mortar abortion clinics nationwide had dropped precipitously, partly because of the fixed risk of violence in opposition to personnel. Six states, MS mentioned, had just one abortion supplier, mostly small, independent operators who were thought-about most at risk.

“Abortion clinics have been closing at an alarming fee,” the article said. “Impartial suppliers are essentially the most vulnerable to anti-abortion assaults and violence directed at their employees.”