EAU CLAIRE, Wis. — Marcy Thomas and her husband, Scott, opened the church doors to a couple of visitors and didn't hesitate to explain how they felt about the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and eliminate constitutional protections for abortion.
"I thought it was disgusting," said Marcy Thomas, 57, as she sat a high-top table in the Valleybrook Church in downtown Eau Claire. She and her husband are members and caretakers for the nondenominational church housed in the historic Hollywood movie theater building, with an outside movie marquee that advertises church services.
She said she doesn't want judges and legislators "telling me how to make choices for my health or my daughter's or my granddaughter's health."
For nearly a half century, a woman's right to an abortion held firm after Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973, so the new ruling sparked deep feelings of anger and rejoice on both sides.
"How after 50 years do you strike it down just like that?" Scott Thomas asked in disbelief, snapping his fingers for emphasis. "No one should have a right to decide what a woman's choice should be."
For Minnesotans, the right to abortion remains constitutionally protected under a 1995 state Supreme Court ruling. But with the court's ruling turning over abortion laws to states, North Dakota and South Dakota are among more than a dozen where trigger laws were set to make abortion illegal once Roe was overturned.
Now Tammi Kromenaker, the director of the Red River Women's Clinic in Fargo, North Dakota, is scrambling to move her independent abortion provider operations across the river to Moorhead, Minnesota. She worries how abortion opponents will act in the coming days: "They're feeling a sense of victory they've never felt before. They may feel emboldened. It's not business as usual."
In Wisconsin, doctors immediately stopped providing abortions after Friday's ruling. The state has an 1849 law that bans the procedure, except to save the life of the mother. Whether that 173-year-old ban is enforceable is expected to be challenged in court.
But for now, the Supreme Court's ruling is exactly what many hoped for.
"I'm anti-abortion," said Bill White, 66, of Fall Creek, Wisconsin, as he stood outside the downtown Eau Claire salon where his wife was getting her hair cut. "Women should have rights. I get that. But to kill a child is wrong. It's a human being from conception."
"Everyone has their own opinion," he quickly added.
For Colette Belisle, 39, of Hudson, the ruling is heartbreaking.
"This decision is pro-fetus, not pro-baby," Belisle said. If political leaders are concerned about babies, more should be done to support them and mothers — support such as generous paid leave and universal day care, she said.
People who choose abortion are often in difficult situations, and forcing women to give birth likely isn't in the best interest of the baby, she said.
The most recent national polls show that a majority of American adults say abortion should be legal in all or most cases.
A woman getting her hair done in a salon looked straight ahead as she pondered the court's decision, and then a sadness washed across her face.
"Did I live too long to have seen this day?" she said, declining to give her name.
Xin Obaid, who moved from China to Eau Claire 12 years ago, said she was stunned by the court's decision.
"In China, why we love America so much is that it is a (free) country," she said. "That's why we always want to come here."
How can it be that a woman now doesn't have control over her own body, she wondered. "In China, you can choose abortion," Obaid said. "If you want to have a baby, you can. If you don't, you have control of that."
Irina Shimko, 52, of Hudson, who aligns with libertarian ideologies, agrees that people should be allowed to make their own choices when it comes to their bodies.
"But giving (the abortion decision) back to the states is fine. It's not a big deal. If you can't get an abortion in Wisconsin, you can go to Minnesota," she said. "If it was no way, nowhere, that would be too extreme."
But across the riverfront park, Elaine Magstadt, 67, of River Falls said government and the courts should never have gotten involved in the abortion issue, she said.
"I used to be anti-abortion," she said. "I'm a strong Christian. But I came to learn this is a choice, and it shouldn't be taken away. People can make their choices and answer to God.
"It's like a little crazy out there," she said. "They're regulating the wrong things. … We have too many guns out there."
Meanwhile, some worry the reversal of Roe v. Wade could lead the courts to overturn same-sex marriage and contraception.
"We certainly have a very conservative Supreme Court that's not a reflection of a majority of the people in this country," said James Hanke, 50, of Eau Claire as his dog waited at his feet.
The answer is simple, Hanke said.
"If people are disappointed, the solution is at the ballot box," he said. "I hope for my daughter's sake and her daughter's sake that people wake up and get to the polls. Hopefully this has inspired them that politics can affect their daily lives."
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