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

Federal agents and detectives from the Madison police division are investigating a declare by a pro-choice group that it was behind a weekend arson assault on an anti-abortion workplace in Wisconsin.

The headquarters of Wisconsin Household Action in Madison was attacked in the early hours of Sunday, with a molotov cocktail thrown by a window, beginning a small fire, and graffiti spray-painted on an exterior wall. Nobody was harm.

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 stated it launched the attack because of the group’s anti-abortion stance, and demanded that related establishments across the US disband or face “increasingly extreme techniques”.

“Wisconsin is the first flashpoint, but we are all over the US, and we'll difficulty no further warnings,” the assertion stated, citing the violence of anti-choice teams who “bomb [abortion] clinics and assassinate medical doctors with impunity” as justification.

The Madison assault came days after the leaking of a supreme courtroom draft ruling that would overturn its 1973 Roe v Wade resolution 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 brokers were aware of the group’s claims of accountability, but cited the continuing investigation for being unable to give more particulars.

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

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

At a press convention on Monday afternoon, the Madison PD and ATF agents introduced a joint investigation into what it known as 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 have been expected to provide a further replace on Tuesday afternoon.

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

“We help the sanctity of human life from the second of conception via pure loss of life. This contains opposing laws that promotes the destruction of human life – which begins at conception – via abortion and other 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 activity from our Governor [and] from local legislation 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: “Because the state of Wisconsin, we don’t accept that kind 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 assaults were amongst more than 300 acts of extreme violence recorded by the Rand Corporation between 1973 and 2003, and in one of the crucial heinous incidents, in 2009, Dr George Tiller, a Kansas abortion supplier, 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 due to the fixed threat of violence in opposition to personnel. Six states, MS stated, had just one abortion supplier, principally small, independent operators who had been thought-about most at risk.

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