By Dominic Taylor-
Police are investigating a suspected arson attack at an anti-abortion clinic in upstate New York in which a facility describing itself as a “pro-life medical office” had its windows smashed and premises allegedly firebombed.
The fire broke out early on Tuesday morning at the CompassCare “community medical facility” in Amherst, New York causing extensive damage.
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The fire was reported at about 3 a.m. and left the building temporarily unusable, CompassCare Chief Executive Jim Harden said.
“Essentially, they firebombed the operation,” Harden said. “They broke the two main windows in the reception area and the nurse’s office and lit the fires.”
The center said it and others like it have faced online and in-person threats in recent weeks following the leak of a draft opinion that suggests the U.S. Supreme Court could be poised to overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade case that legalized abortion nationwide.
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Last month, the office of a prominent Wisconsin anti-abortion lobby group was damaged by fire after two Molotov cocktails were thrown at it. Police said an anti-abortion organization in Salem, Oregon, also recently was damaged by two Molotov cocktails during an unsuccessful break-in attempt.
Graffiti spray-painted on the side of the CompassCare building said “Jane was here”- believed to be a reference to a pro-choice militant group that goes by the name Jane’s Revenge.
Last month Jane’s Revenge claimed responsibility for an arson attack at an anti-abortion office in Wisconsin. The group sent a statement to a local paper , claiming responsibility for the headquarters of Wisconsin Family Action in Madison because of its anti-abortion stance, warning that similar institutions in the US faced “increasingly extreme tactics” if they did not disband.
In a video posted on CompassCare’s Facebook page, the chief executive, Jim Harden, used hyperbolic language to characterise the attack. “This is the pro-abortion Kristallnacht,” he said, referring to the violence unleashed by the Nazis against the Jewish population in Germany in November 1938.
The fire took place in the same Buffalo suburb where Dr. Barnett Slepian was murdered by an anti-abortion extremist in 1998
He added: “They broke glass under the cover of darkness to keep us from doing the work of the Lord, from being the light of the world. And we are not going to stop.”
That killing followed a period in which Buffalo was ground zero in the nation’s anti-abortion movement, with protesters converging on the city from around the U.S. in an attempt to close clinics down.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced last month the state would give abortion providers $35 million to expand services and boost security in anticipation of the Supreme Court decision. Besides Slepian, at least 10 other people have been slain across the U.S. by anti-abortion zealots since 1993 in attacks on clinics and health care providers.
Harden said the fire shows that groups opposed to abortion deserve security help, too.
“We haven’t gotten a single dime for security,” Harden said.
In an emailed statement, Hochul’s office said the governor “condemns violence of any kind, and the State Police stand ready to assist local authorities with the investigation.”
CompassCare claims to offer legitimate medical services to women considering abortion. Those “services” include reversal of an abortion for women who have taken an abortion pill, and providing information about the health risks of terminating a pregnancy.
The American Medical Association’s Journal of Ethics has described pregnancy centers like CompassCare as unethical, describing them as “organisations that seek to intercept women with unintended pregnancies who might be considering abortion. Their mission is to prevent abortions by persuading women that adoption or parenting is a better option.”
The supervisor of Amherst, Brian Kulpa, told the local ABC station WKBW7 that he was “disgusted that lives were put at risk. A violent response is never the answer. There is no place in Amherst for such attacks.”
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