In Miami, the end of Roe v. Wade means fear and praise for a landmark ruling

Monica Skoko Rodríguez wasn’t surprised by Friday’s Supreme Court decision ending federal abortion rights, but the ruling still left the former Planned Parenthood nurse alarmed at the future for women now that Roe v. Wade has been overturned.

“As a person who can have an abortion, it feels like a loss of personhood,” said Skoko Rodríguez, who is leaving her job running Miami-Dade County’s Commission for Women to take a senior post at Planned Parenthood. “It feels like a loss of my rights, and a loss of my government seeing me as a full human.”

When the Republican-appointed justices on the Supreme Court voted to overturn the 1973 ruling that created a federally protected right to abortion, the decision ended a legal framework in place for almost 50 years. Friday’s ruling has some recalling their own grappling with the abortion question, and how to balance it with religious beliefs.

Gloria Romero Roses, who came to the U.S. from Colombia in the ‘70s, used to be against abortion rights. But she said a Catholic social justice conference in Milwaukee changed her beliefs — to the point that she’s now a board member for Catholics for Choice, a national organization.

“There are people of faith that believe abortion is wrong and that government should legislate something around that,” she said. “However, there are more people of faith that believe government should stay out of a woman’s decision that should be made with her faith, with her doctor and with her loved ones.”

Miami Archbishop Thomas Wenski, however, had a different view, saying the reversal of Roe “is certainly welcomed by all those who recognize that human life begins at conception and that this is a scientific and biological fact and not merely a religious belief or ideological theory.”

“Abortion too often is seen as the solution to an unforeseen problem, a fallback position if contraception failed or was not used. But abortion is no solution — and it is no right,” Wenski, the Catholic leader in Miami-Dade, Broward and Monroe counties, said in an emailed statement to the Herald. “It is a wrong, a grievous wrong that has prematurely ended the lives of more than 60 million souls in this country alone since 1973.”

State battles are next

Rev. Robert J. Pacienza, senior pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale — one of the largest Evangelical Christian congregations in South Florida, often attracting more than 15,000 worshipers, described this as “a moment to celebrate and savor this triumph for life.”

“This is extraordinarily good news for all Americans,” Pacienza said in an emailed statement to the Herald.

“But the war to protect the unborn is not won. And won’t be until every child conceived in our great nation is, once more, protected in law,” he added. “And until abortion is made not just illegal ... but unthinkable.”

Linda Fernandez, who works for an organization that partners with the Archodiocese of Miami to distribute pamphlets listing abortion alternatives in front of abortion sites in Miami-Dade and Broward counties, also noted the next battleground will be in the states.

“This doesn’t mean this completely ends abortion; it just means that there’s more work to do in a state level,” said Fernandez, who was at an anti-abortion conference in Indianapolis when she learned of the court’s decision.

Fernandez, 31, who had an abortion in college and later regretted her decision, found solace in Project Rachel, the U.S. Catholic Church’s post-abortion ministry.

‘Incredible blow’ to women

For other South Florida women, the Supreme Court decision portends a scary future.

Maïa Berthier, 18, woke up Friday to a text message from a friend reading: “roe v wade was overturned.”

“I’ve never known a world without Roe v. Wade protecting our fundamental human rights, and trying to imagine one in which these protections are gone feels honestly terrifying,” said Berthier, who recently graduated from Coral Gables Senior High and is attending Barnard College of Columbia University this fall. “The future of my generation and beyond will be shaped by this decision.”

For women who’ve long been fighting for reproductive rights, Friday’s news was a gut punch.

“It can’t be emphasized enough what an incredible blow this is to the women of the United States,” said Caroline Mala Corbin, a University of Miami School of Law constitutional law professor who started her legal career at the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project. “They have been relegated to second-class citizenship where they are not able to control their own bodies or their own destinies.”

Some, too, were concerned with the impact the court decision would have on young women who could not afford to get to a state that provides legal abortions. There are 13 states in the country that have enacted “trigger bans,” designed to ban abortion within 30 days of Roe being overturned. Another seven states are likely to ban abortions, according to an analysis by The Washington Post.

“Poor women, women of color, and young women will bear the brunt of this decision, which will not end abortions; it will just make them less safe and put women in dangerous situations with no way out,” said Martha Baker, a registered nurse at Jackson Health System and president of Local 1991 of the Service Employees International Union.

The majority of abortion patients in the United States are poor, in their 20s and already have a child, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive health group that advocates for women’s right to an abortion.

The ruling has no immediate impact in Florida, which does not have a “trigger” law waiting to restrict abortion rights further once the Supreme Court ended federal protections for the medical procedures.

But in April, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a law banning most abortions in Florida after 15 weeks of pregnancy. The law takes effect July 1. Before the law, abortions in Florida were legal until the third trimester — about 24 weeks of pregnancy.

READ MORE: What does the Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade made for Florida?

Opposing political views

U.S. Rep. María Elvira Salazar, a Republican in a Miami congressional district with a streak of flipping between the parties, focused on state prerogatives in praising the decision in a Twitter post.

“As a Christian and the mother of two beautiful daughters, I support life,” she said. “The Supreme Court decision gives power back to the states and their voters — where decisions should be made, just as the Constitution intends.”

A Democrat running to unseat Salazar in Florida’s 27th Congressional District, state Sen. Annette Taddeo, issued a scathing statement of her own: “The government has no right to get between a woman, her family & her doctor,” the Colombian American wrote. “As someone who was born in a country without these freedoms, I am particularly appalled for the generations who will have less freedoms than those previously granted to us in America. Today is a dark day.”

U.S. Rep. Frederica Wilson, a Democrat representing Florida’s 24th Congressional District in the Miami area, issued a statement calling for government action, from expanded contraception access for men and women, to a Democrat-controlled Congress adding more seats to the Supreme Court to flip the majority back to protecting abortion rights.

“Abortion is a human right,” she said. “And that right must be protected.”

In a statement, DeSantis, a Republican who might run for president, said the decision “has answered the prayers of millions upon millions of Americans” and that the state “will work to expand pro-life protections.”

Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, the county’s senior Democrat, called the ruling a “devastating assault on the personal, economic, and medical freedom of women in America.”

“What we heard from our nation’s highest court today is not a reflection of the America we know and love,” she said.

Miami Herald Staff Writers Sommer Brugal and Michelle Marchante contributed to this report.

This story was originally published June 24, 2022 at 12:46 PM.