UUs Unapologetically Promote and Defend Reproductive Rights in Florida

As the state of Florida continues its attack on reproductive rights, First Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the Palm Beaches has ramped up its long-standing efforts to protect them, partnering with state and local groups to support people seeking abortions and who have other reproductive health needs.

“The roots of our congregation’s involvement in this issue go back to our founders,” says Chris Carsman, the lay leader helping spearhead the work. Harriette Glasner, one of the founders of the congregation in 1953, was a social justice trailblazer in the Palm Beach area with a passion for reproductive rights. Among other things, in 1975 Glasner formally organized Emergency Medical Assistance (EMA), in West Palm Beach, only the second such fund in the country, which provides financial assistance for people seeking an abortion.

Glasner, who died in 2002, was “a force of nature in our county,” says Carsman, and not just for reproductive rights but for racial justice and much more. “She began Emergency Medical Assistance from her kitchen table, and she was one of the founders of the NAACP in Palm Beach County.” As a wealthy woman in one of the wealthiest places in the country, Glasner “basically used her finances and position to support causes for justice in the county,” Carsman adds.

Especially in light of that history, “this is something that resonates with all of us at First UU,” Carsman says.

The urgency of the work is growing. In 2024, Florida passed a law banning abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, with few exceptions. Last year, the congregation and many others worked hard to gather support for Amendment 4, which sought to limit government interference in abortion. It garnered 57 percent of the statewide vote in the 2024 election but fell short of the 60 percent required to make it part of the state constitution.

“Amendment 4, the high-level stuff, failed, so we shift and we move into action: How do we help these folks right now?” says Rev. Latifah Griffin, First UU’s minister, who led the congregation in supporting  Floridians Protecting Freedom’s “Yes On 4” abortion rights campaign.

“We learned this year at GA [General Assembly, the annual meeting of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA)] that the emphasis in our ministry is to Meet the Moment. Here in Palm Beach County, there are many things we could focus on,” Griffin says, and they do, including advocating for immigrant rights. “Reproductive justice is low-hanging fruit for us because we have a trailblazer in Harriette Glasner. It’s almost like this [assault on reproductive rights] has happened again, and she’s mad, and she’s empowered us to do this work.”

Support for Reproductive Rights in Florida Takes Many Forms

Working on Amendment 4 put the congregation in touch with many groups across the state. “After the election, we regrouped and said, ‘How can we keep working on this issue and find ways to help support people who are needing to access abortion care by leaving the state?’” adds Carsman, who recently joined the EMA’s Board of Directors.

Today, the congregation’s efforts to support reproductive rights are taking many forms, with an emphasis on the practical and the local. Many Floridians seeking abortions are now having to choose to travel to Illinois or other states; EMA helps them with travel costs and setting up out-of-state clinic appointments. The congregation has gathered volunteers from its members and in the wider community to create travel care kits with essential items for the trips “so they aren’t going empty-handed,” says Griffin, who serves on the board of trustees for Unitarian Universalists for Social Justice (UUSJ).

And, after learning that many people lack access to period supplies—a situation known as “period poverty,” Griffin says—they connected with period pantry projects in the Miami and Ft. Lauderdale areas, which advocate for free period supplies to be available in bathrooms, just as toilet paper is free. The congregation has launched a period pantry for Palm Beach County to provide free period supplies. This spring, volunteers working at the congregation created 650 period packs with supplies and distributed them to local organizations that support underserved groups, including homeless people and youth organizations. In June the congregation held another event that drew more volunteers and created another 650 period packs. They also created fifty hygiene packs, with washcloths, soap, and other toiletries.

Carsman expects this project to expand into creating and distributing reproductive care packs that contain condoms and day-of birth control. She wants to find more partners for the work, and to reach out to schools to supply them with period packs so kids don’t miss class for lack of period or hygiene supplies. “We’ll just keep branching out to see what else we can be doing,” says Carsman.

Partnering is key, she emphasizes. “It is really important to know that we are not doing this work alone but in partnership with others across our state and community. It’s not First UU coming up with ideas of how to help; it’s understanding where the need is through our relationships and figuring out alongside our partners how we can best plug into that need,” Carsman says. “For us, it’s about reproductive justice. It feels like that’s a need in the fabric of our community. It is our legacy as a UU community in north Palm Beach, Florida to do this work. But there are lots of issues, and people wherever they are can get started at whatever they want to be doing.”

Side With Love Program Equips UUs to Defend Reproductive Rights

Both Griffin and Carsman participated in the UUA’s Tending SOIL (Skills, Organizing, Interdependence, and Liberation) program, developed by Side With Love to build leadership and effective local teams within UU congregations to advance shared values. Tending SOIL debuted in 2024, built on the foundation of Side With Love’s previous organizing schools.

“It put me in a place where I got to meet other people doing similar work across the country,” Carsman says.

Rev. Ranwa Hammamy of Side With Love’s Organizing Strategy Team and Rev. Cathy Rion Starr, Leadership Development specialist at the UUA, were excited when Griffin and Carsman accepted the invitation to participate in the first iteration of Tending SOIL, they say.

“Tending SOIL, as a program, was designed to deepen that already-present commitment, with relationships and mutually supportive learning as the foundation,” says Hammamy. “First Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the Palm Beaches’ ongoing local organizing—through and beyond the Amendment 4 campaign—is a testament to what all of our congregations are capable of creating when we take the time to nurture community connections, imagine and explore possibilities together, and of course, hold love at the center.”

When anti-abortion protesters began showing up at the Presidential Women’s Center in West Palm Beach, which offers abortion services, the center hired security guards but needed more help to protect its patients, so it reached out to First UU. The congregation organized and trained people to be a buffer between the protesters and the patients. Calling themselves “welcome escorts,” there are over twenty congregants and friends of the congregation serving in that role.

In a bright-red state with a Republican governor and legislature—and a state on the leading edge in book banning, proscribing gay rights, and arresting and detaining immigrants—“our county has stood up to some of that,” Carsman says. It’s one of only six counties in the state that voted for Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election, Griffin adds; indeed, Trump lost Palm Beach County even though he has a home there.

“As UUs, that’s our work—our work is the here and now,” says Griffin. “If you look at the history of our congregation and the people in it, this was necessary work.”