DAYTONA BEACH — Beneath an ominous canopy of lightning flashes and booming thunder, roughly 100 abortion-rights demonstrators waved homemade banners and shouted slogans outside the Volusia County Courthouse Annex on Friday, protesting the Supreme Court’s decision to end 50 years of constitutional protection for legal abortions.

“No church! No state! Let women decide their own fate!” the crowd chanted at the western base of the Orange Avenue bridge, their words occasionally greeted by a honking horn of approval from motorists.

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More often, the exhortations were punctuated by rumbling thunder, as dark clouds, lightning and heavy rain forced the demonstrators to seek cover after about an hour in their cars or under the roof of the courthouse entrance.

The Daytona Beach demonstration was part of a series of women’s rights protests underway nationwide, an effort branded as the “Summer of Rage” by The Women’s March, the national organization behind the movement.

The Women’s March will hold a national protest on Saturday, July 9, in Washington, D.C.

That all-day event is expected to draw tens of thousands of demonstrators for activities that will take place at the National Mall, Freedom Plaza, the Martin Luther King and Lincoln memorials and Lafayette Park.

In Daytona Beach, the organizers of Friday’s grassroots protest were optimistic that the event would build momentum that could help ensure equal rights for women and eventually lead to restoration of the right to legal abortion.

“I believe in a woman’s right to privacy, in a woman’s right to choose,” said organizer ChristIna Quinn, 40, of Daytona Beach, who said she planned the event without formal connection to any political or social service organization.

“The government shouldn’t impose their own morals and beliefs on the citizens of America,” Quinn said.

Nearby, another participant, Diane Rose, 66, of Daytona Beach, held a flag emblazoned with the words “Women’s Rights Human Rights.” Like some others in the crowd, she was old enough to remember women’s rights protests of the early 1970s.

“We shouldn’t have to be fighting for our rights again,” she said. “But the fight will continue until we get our rights as women to have a say over our bodies. It’s not up to old men or Christians to dictate what we can or can’t do.”

Other banners offered messages such as “Abort This ‘Illegal’ Supreme Court,” “Keep Your Rosaries Off My Ovaries” and “Reproductive Rights Are Human Rights.”  

Although most of the demonstrators were women, there also were men in the crowd.

“I’ve got a wife and a daughter, and I don’t like to see their rights get taken away,” said David Perry, 71, of Ormond Beach “I personally wouldn’t recommend that anyone have an abortion, but it’s their choice. It’s not the government’s right to have a say in it.”

Perry recalled the days before the Supreme Court’s Roe v Wade decision legalized the right to abortion in 1973, adding that it’s unrealistic to think that a court ruling will stop women from having the procedure.

“In the 1960s, when it was illegal, women were still getting abortions — and a lot of women died,” he said.  “They (anti-abortion advocates) think they’re going to stop abortions, but they’re not. Women are still going to get them done, in back alleys or wherever.”

Although Friday’s demonstration was cut short by rough weather, the same group of abortion-rights advocates is planning to convene again for an Independence Day protest at 11 a.m. Monday at the corner of Beach Street and International Speedway Boulevard.

In announcing that event to the crowd on Friday, Quinn said the issue was worth taking time from holiday barbecues or celebrations.

“I don’t know about you guys,” she said, “but I’m not really into celebrating an independence that I don’t have.”