Professional-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 attack 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 via 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 said 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 establishments throughout the US disband or face “increasingly extreme techniques”.

“Wisconsin is the primary flashpoint, but we are all over the US, and we are going to situation no additional warnings,” the assertion said, citing the violence of anti-choice groups 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 draft ruling that would overturn its 1973 Roe v Wade resolution 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) advised the Guardian that its brokers have been conscious of the group’s claims of accountability, however cited the continued investigation for being unable to present extra details.

The Madison police department mentioned it was “conscious of a group claiming accountability for the arson at Wisconsin Family Action and are working with our federal partners to find out the veracity of that declare”.

It urged anybody with relevant data to make contact, saying: “We take all data and tips associated to this case critically and are working to vet each and every one.”

At a press convention 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 attack of a pro-life advocacy office in Madison”.

The Madison police chief, Shon Barnes, mentioned no suspects had to date been identified. Authorities had been expected to give an additional update on Tuesday afternoon.

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

“We assist the sanctity of human life from the second of conception through natural death. This includes opposing laws that promotes the destruction of human life – which starts at conception – by 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 a lot stronger message of condemnation of this exercise from our Governor [and] from local legislation enforcement,” he wrote.

At a press convention on Monday, Evers referred to as the attack “a horrible incident”.

Calling for a full investigation and arrests, he added: “Because the state of Wisconsin, we don’t settle for that kind of violence 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 attacks were among more than 300 acts of maximum violence recorded by the Rand Corporation between 1973 and 2003, and in one of the vital heinous incidents, in 2009, Dr George Tiller, a Kansas abortion supplier, was shot useless 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 menace of violence towards personnel. Six states, MS stated, had only one abortion supplier, largely small, unbiased operators who were thought of most at risk.

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