(Originally appeared in TheGuardian.com.)
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. Extensive damage was caused that will take months to repair, the group said.
Nobody in the anti-abortion group was hurt, though two firefighters incurred minor injuries.
Graffiti spray-painted on the side of the CompassCare building said “Jane was here”. There was speculation that the phrase might 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 in which it said it had attacked 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.
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.”
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. They are “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.”
The governor of New York state, Kathy Hochul, put out a statement saying that she “condemns violence of any kind”.
