An Illinois man allegedly attempted to set fire to a prospective abortion clinic in Danville and also rammed his car into the building entrance, according to federal authorities.
The property has been at the center of a dispute over reproductive rights in this east-central Illinois community, which passed an ordinance earlier this month to try and curb abortion access by banning the mailing and shipping of abortion pills.
Danville police responded to an alarm early Saturday at 600 N. Logan Avenue and found a man “stuck inside a maroon Volkswagen Passat that he had backed into the entrance of the building, which is being renovated for use as a reproductive health clinic,” according to a news release by the United States Attorney’s Office in the Central District of Illinois.
The man also brought along several containers filled with gasoline, according to the news release.
Philip J. Buyno, 73, of Prophetstown has been charged with attempted arson of the clinic, according to the release. If convicted, Buyno faces a minimum of five years and up to 20 years in prison, and a fine of up to $250,000, according to federal authorities.
The alleged attack follows recent heated, high-profile demonstrations in support of and against abortion access in this community of about 30,000.
Earlier this month, the Danville City Council narrowly passed a controversial ban on the mailing and shipping of abortion pills, a measure Attorney General Kwame Raoul and civil rights experts have warned is illegal in Illinois.
The city’s 14 aldermen were evenly divided on the issue, with the mayor breaking the tie with a vote in favor of the ordinance.
Hundreds of demonstrators from both sides of the abortion debate filled the meeting room and spilled outside, with dueling protesters chanting and waving signs in front of city hall. The vote came after roughly three hours of emotional public comment, with intense debate over moral issues as weighty and complicated as when life begins.
“Passing this ordinance will not stop women from seeking out abortion services,” one Danville woman told the council. “It will, however, encourage women to seek unhealthy means to terminate their pregnancies, isolate themselves from those around them due to fear of getting in trouble or pay heavy fines that most people are unable to afford.”
Other residents supported the ordinance, many speaking out against the prospect of an abortion provider settling in their rural community.
One woman worried that having an abortion clinic would become what Danville will be “known for.”
“And I don’t want that — and I hope that you don’t want that,” she told the council.
The building at 600 N. Logan Avenue was recently sold to McGhee Investment Group of Indianapolis, which has the same owner and address as the Indianapolis abortion provider Clinic for Women, according to Indiana Secretary of State records.
Officials at Clinic for Women did not return calls for comment. Danville police and Mayor Rickey Williams Jr. also did not respond to requests for comment. Vermillion County State’s Attorney Jacqueline Lacy referred questions to the federal authorities.
Personal PAC, a Chicago pro-abortion rights group, called the attack on the Danville site “a violent escalation in the efforts by the anti-choice minority to sow fear and discourage exercise of the right to receive abortion care in Illinois, by any means necessary.”
“Danville represents the new front lines in the ongoing battle of protecting reproductive rights in Illinois,” the organization said in a statement. “Small towns, home to the independent clinics that are meeting the critical needs of people in underserved areas, will see an influx of out-of-state anti-choice money and organizing focused on eliminating abortion access, one clinic at a time.”
The property, a former eye care business, is just a few minutes from the border of Indiana, a state where abortion rights have been in flux. Indiana last year became the first state to enact a near-total ban on abortion after the United States Supreme Court’s June 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling that guaranteed abortion rights nationwide.
Enforcement of the Indiana law was blocked by the courts shortly after the it went into effect in September, amid legal challenges.
In contrast, Illinois has strong abortion rights protections; the 2019 Reproductive Health Act declared abortion a “fundamental right” here.
Since the end of Roe, abortion providers have reported a surge in patients crossing state lines to come to Illinois to terminate pregnancies. New abortion clinics have opened here and existing providers have expanded hours and services to respond to the skyrocketing demand.
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Yet in Illinois as well as across the country, reproductive health organizations have reported an unprecedented level of violence after the fall of Roe.
The attack in Danville occurred just a few months after another man was accused of setting fire to a Planned Parenthood Health Center roughly a hundred miles away in Peoria.
Tyler W. Massengill, 32, of Chillicothe in February pleaded guilty to setting the fire; when he was arrested in January, he told authorities that an ex-girlfriend had an abortion several years ago in Peoria, which upset him. The blaze was set a few days after Illinois passed expansive reproductive rights legislation that included protections for abortion providers and out-of-state patients as well as an expansion of the pool of clinicians that can perform abortions.
Massengill had told investigators that if the fire caused “a little delay” in a person receiving services at the Peoria health center, it might have been “all worth it,” according to a criminal complaint.
That January firebombing caused more than a million dollars of damage to the Peoria clinic, a building that hasn’t reopened yet, according to the Planned Parenthood of Illinois website.
“This senseless act of vandalism has robbed the community of access to birth control, cancer screenings, (sexually transmitted infection) testing and treatment, and gender-affirming care as well as medication abortion services,” Jennifer Welch, the agency’s president and CEO, had said in a written statement. “We appreciate the outpouring of support from the community, state, and nation as we continue to meet our patients’ needs through telehealth and at our other 16 health centers across the state.”
eleventis@chicagotribune.com
