Pro-life groups launch private investigation to find vandals who firebombed, attacked pregnancy centers
A pro-life pregnancy center firebombed by pro-abortion terrorists last year has announced a partnership with a noted law firm to conduct an independent investigation searching for the perpetrators of the violence as it continues to characterize the federal government’s response to the attacks as lackluster.
CompassCare, a network of pro-life pregnancy centers in upstate New York, announced in a statement Tuesday that it was partnering with the Thomas More Society, a law firm “dedicated to restoring respect in law for life, family, religious liberty, and election integrity,” to hire private investigators to search for the perpetrators of pro-abortion violence. In June of last year, vandals broke the windows of CompassCare’s Buffalo office, lit fires at the facility and spray-painted graffiti on the outside of the building.
Although the pro-life pregnancy center was able to rebuild less than two months after the attack, the perpetrators remain at large. The pro-abortion group Jane’s Revenge, whose members and leadership are anonymous, claimed credit for attacking CompassCare and several other pro-life pregnancy centers.
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While the FBI has offered a $25,000 reward to anyone with information leading to the arrest of the perpetrators of the firebombing of the pro-life organization’s Buffalo office last June, CEO Jim Harden believes the federal government’s efforts thus far are not in good faith. “If the FBI is interested in quelling the nationwide hate crimes against Christian pro-life organizations, they would offer a reward for information leading to the arrests of all 78 attacks, not just for the pro-abortion terrorists who bombed our facility,” he said.
As Harden stated, the attack on CompassCare is one of many attacks directed at pro-life pregnancy centers and churches following Politico’s publication of a leaked U.S. Supreme Court draft decision in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization on May 2. The draft decision indicated that a majority of justices were prepared to overturn the Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion nationwide and believed that the U.S. Constitution did not contain a right to abortion.
The violence directed at such organizations continued throughout the summer after the Supreme Court published the official Dobbsruling on June 24 and persisted into the fall.
“It is a sad day when private citizens are left to do the work of law enforcement,” Harden added. “If the FBI is being used for political purposes, all investigative efforts should turn on them. The organization should be defunded and those involved indicted for conspiracy to deprive pro-life citizens of their rights.”
Harden elaborated on his organization’s partnership with the Thomas More Society and his concerns with the federal government’s response to the wave of pro-abortion violence in an interview with The Christian Post. He told CP that while “we just started probably two or three weeks ago on this particular initiative,” his organization has had a relationship with the Thomas More Society for “many, many months” and has “from time to time reached out to them for legal advice.”
“This is not only dedicated to finding the perpetrators of the violence committed against CompassCare in Buffalo,” he explained. “It’s nationwide. So we’re looking at … trying to find the perpetrators for … all these crimes against … specifically pregnancy centers.”
Harden said their investigation will “limit the investigative scope to just pregnancy centers” instead of including both pregnancy centers and churches because of financial concerns. He added that the investigation thus far has resulted in “some really interesting observations that either the FBI knows and didn’t tell us or the FBI does not know.”
“At this point, I’m not at liberty to say what those observations are,” he asserted. “Some of them relate to the manner in which the terrorist activity and communications are happening, similar to al-Qaeda type communications and leadership infrastructure as well as the potential interaction with the transgender movement.”
Harden described it as “reprehensible” that “it took the FBI five weeks just to review our video surveillance.” He characterized his communications with the federal law enforcement agency as “spotty and in many ways unprofessional and somewhat manipulative.” Identifying the day the Dobbs case was decided as “the last day that I had spoken to the FBI,” Harden insisted that “the investigator in charge said he would not speak to me after that.”
He added: “The reason why is because I asked him if federal law enforcement had allocated any additional resources to protect life organizations because Jane’s Revenge, the pro-abortion terrorist group that firebombed our facility and took responsibility for the firebombing of our facility, was promoting A Night of Rage and he said … he didn’t have to answer to us and … he wouldn’t talk to me again.”
Harden lamented that the FBI reached out to him again only after lawmakers sent FBI Director Christopher Wray a letter expressing concern about the lack of action taken to address the attacks on pro-life pregnancy centers: “Three hours later, after that letter was released, I got a text message from the FBI. They wanted to talk about how we were portraying the FBI in the media and they wanted to talk about whether or not we would consider backing off on our lawsuit to receive our private property back, our video surveillance.”
“So, they didn’t want to talk about the investigation, they didn’t want to talk about the perpetrators, they wanted to talk about their reputation,” Harden concluded.
He also questioned why after they established a reward for information on the perpetrators five months after the CompassCare attack, “they’re not listing as domestic terrorism.” Proclaiming “that’s what it is,” he also identified the pro-abortion violence as part of a “concerted targeted effort to shut down pro-life organizations.”
In the statement announcing CompassCare’s partnership with the Thomas More Society, Harden warned that “Based on the political power struggle currently happening in the aftermath of Roe’s reversal and the lead up to the 2024 Presidential election, along with multiple pending investigations into multilayered pro-abortion crimes, I predict in 2023 that the pro-abortion empire and those politicians and big corporations that protect it will increase attacks against pro-life people and organizations.”
Harden reiterated his belief that “pro-abortion violence is going to increase in 2023 in the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election” in his interview with CP, recalling that “this all started in the lead-up to the midterms because pro-abortion politicians in charge of the Democratic Party were afraid that the overturning of Roe v. Wade would cause a power shift.” He noted that “for the first time since the 1950s, there is a conservative element that’s controlling the Supreme Court so the Democratic Party can’t circumvent the legislative process using the judicial process.”
Harden maintained that the Democratic Party is seeking to “maintain control over the legislative process” by “villainizing pro-life people” and “making them look like they’re crazy and they’re violent.” He stressed that “there is an all-out war that has been declared on peaceful pro-life organizations.”
“You have political bad actors like Elizabeth Warren claiming that pregnancy centers are terrorizing women and we need to be shut down. You’ve got Senator Hirono out of Hawaii calling pro-abortion people to arms, you’ve got not just the pro-abortion terrorist groups that are attacking us, you’ve got big tech that’s actually censoring us at the behest of political actors like New York Gov. [Kathy] Hochul and Letitia James, New York Attorney General.”
Months after the attack, CompassCare still finds itself subject to “several threats” including “online smear campaigns,” “in-person protesting” and “death threats” but none have resulted in damage to the facility. Harden also expressed gratitude that the firefighters injured attending to the firebombed pregnancy center have recovered. Those seeking to donate to assist with the private investigation can visit the websites of either CompassCare or The Thomas More Society.
Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: [email protected]
