Miami, FL — On the night of July 3, 2022, just nine days after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, a group of anonymous vandals approached a nondescript building in Hialeah, Florida, covering one of its walls with graffiti.

It read: “If abortions aren’t safe, then neither are you” and “Jane’s Revenge.”

More than nine months later, federal prosecutors announced that two pro-choice activists in Florida had been charged with federal crimes for the graffiti on that and two other South Florida targets. Two months later, prosecutors arrested two more activists, alleging they’d also participated. 

The spray-painted building houses a so-called “Pregnancy Help Clinic” run by the conservative Christian nonprofit Heartbeat of Miami. The federal charges hinge, in part, on the question of whether it provides “reproductive health services.”

Whether it’s a legitimate clinic or, as some allege, a “fake clinic,” one thing is certain: Heartbeat of Miami is is tied to the wider far-right and the January 6, 2021, pro-Trump attack on the U.S. Capitol.

“Fake Clinics”

If the Heartbeat of Miami doesn’t exist to provide reproductive health services, then what does it do?

“These anti-abortion centers that are sometimes called ‘crisis pregnancy centers,’ exist all across the country in every single state,” said Max Carwile, Programs Director with the Abortion Access Front. “There are many, many fake clinics, as we like to call them, that exist for the sole purpose of lying about abortion and other reproductive health care services, to try and push a religious agenda and harassment onto potentially pregnant people.”

The Abortion Access Front runs a campaign called Expose Fake Clinics to spread information about the growing influence of these facilities in the U.S.

According to Carwile, such anti-abortion centers are not medical facilities and frequently don’t provide any legitimate medical services at all. While some facilities, such as Heartbeat of Miami, claim to provide ultrasounds, others provide only those services that are available over the counter for anyone at the local drug store—such as pregnancy tests and STD testing.

“The vast majority do not provide medical services or have medical personnel,” said Carwile.

“Occasionally, they’ll have an ultrasound technician who’s on call or somebody with some sort of medical credentials like a dentist who’s on their board. So they can say that they do have medical professionals as part of their team. But we know that that’s not the same thing as, say, an actual OBGYN medical doctor providing care in an actual OBGYN office.”

But if they aren’t medical clinics, then what are they? “Fake clinics” are part of an ascendant national strategy of the religious and political right-wing to advance an anti-abortion agenda. They do not exist to help anyone, Carwile says. And as actual abortion clinics continue to close across the country, the number of anti-abortion facilities calling themselves “clinics” continues to grow.

“There are roughly around six to seven hundred real abortion clinics remaining in the United States,” explained Carwile, “but somewhere around 3,000 fake clinics around the entire country. They greatly outnumber actual abortion clinics, because since most of them are not actual licensed medical facilities, it’s much easier for them to start up and just rent building space.”

The Hialeah facility is one of a network of clinics run by the nonprofit Heartbeat International, one of the largest networks of anti-abortion “clinics” in the country. The group boasts on its website that it “serves over 3,000 affiliate locations.”

The website for “Pregnancy Help Medical Clinics,” which is operated by Heartbeat International and appears to be a different website for the same Florida facilities, includes stock photos of young, female medical professionals — a young doctor with a stethoscope around her neck, a medical professional in scrubs, smiling at the camera. But the facilities operated by Heartbeat don’t appear to require any medical staff to operate.

Heartbeat of Miami did not respond to a request for information on what services its Hialeah facility offers, but according to their website, the facility offers ultrasounds, testing for sexually transmitted infections, pregnancy tests, sonograms, and “education.” Pregnancy and STI testing, of course, are available to anyone over-the-counter, and ultrasound and sonogram technicians are not required to be licensed in Florida.

The group claims that its facilities “are licensed with medical personnel and support staff,” but does not specify in what way those personnel are licensed. None of the services the facility claims to offer on the website require licensure.

Their website’s language defines their mission in terms of a patriarchal, homophobic version of Christianity rather than medical science, professing that “only God, through faith in Jesus Christ, can forgive, cleanse, and transform people” and “the role of women as child bearers is ordained of God.”

One of their listed “Core Values,” “The Soundness of Sexual Purity, Marriage & Family,” states that in “a healthy society,” marriage should only be “between a man and a woman.”

In a June 30, 2024 Facebook post, Heartbeat of Miami Clinic Director Jeanne Pernia announced that a baby delivered by a mother who visited Heartbeat of Miami died shortly after birth, while still celebrating that the parents had been prevented from seeking an abortion.

Heartbeat of Miami Leadership Links to January 6 & ‘Stop The Steal’

Heartbeat of Miami President Martha E. Avila described the spray-painting of Heartbeat’s building as the work of “pro-abortion terrorists.” Avila’s career background is in customer service and technical support for airlines and she does not claim to have any medical background at all.

In 2019, then-President Trump hosted Avila at the White House for a Hispanic Heritage Month Reception where she gave a brief speech declaring that “one day, abortion will be unthinkable in our country.”

Avila frequently posts social media pictures from Miami-area GOP events. She has also been the featured guest of a group that supports the January 6, 2021 attack on Congress. A July 2022 event hosted by the America First Patriots Club lists Avila as a speaker alongside Drew Montez-Clark, a 2020 election denier and 2022 candidate for the U.S. House seat for Florida’s 20th District.

Other speakers hosted by the America First Patriots Club since its founding in 2021 include alt-right troll Laura Loomer, anti-vaccine activist Shannon Kroner, and “Stop The Steal” organizer Scott Pressler. Photos from official America First Patriots Club events posted to the club’s currently-defunct website show some attendees posing in QAnon shirts.

Martin Sergio Bermudez, a member of Heartbeat of Miami’s board of directors, maintains close ties with the Miami Proud Boys, frequently posing in photos with members online.

Bermudez has posted pictures of himself with extreme right personas like “meme maker” Logan Cook (‘Carpe Donktum’), disgraced former student journalist Andy Ngo, and far-right conspiracy theorists Laura Loomer and Jack Posobiec. (Both Loomer and Posobiec are proteges of Florida-based longtime right-wing movement architect and political stunt artist Roger Stone, whom Bermudez also posed with.)

Bermudez also proudly posed with national Proud Boys leaders Enrique Tarrio and Joseph Biggs, who are currently serving 22 and 17 years in federal prison, respectively, for their roles in leading the January 6 attack to overturn the 2020 election. 

One photo Bermudez posted to Facebook in February 2020 denounced those “from the Republican side” who were “throwing shade” on him for associating with Proud Boys leader Tarrio, who he counts among “fellow patriots who I consider friends.”

Social media photos indicate Bermudez attended the January 6, 2021 “Stop The Steal” rally in D.C. that led to the attack on Congress; it is unclear if he was in the crowd that broke into restricted Capitol grounds to stop the electoral count. 

Bermudez’ Twitter feed is heavy on bigotry, pro-Trump memes, tough-on-crime machismo, and occasional Bitcoin boosterism. He’s also a fervent supporter of El Salvador’s right wing president Nayib Bukele, a self-described “dictator” implementing an anti-democratic agenda denounced by human rights advocates; Bermudez aggressively promotes his side business selling “Bukele 2024” hats.

Bermudez’s posts on X (formerly Twitter) showcase a taste for eccentric low-quality memes one might find amongst right-wing baby boomer Facebook groups, such as digitally altered images of an aged Greta Thunberg smoking a cigarette or Joe Biden soiling his pants. Some posts feature a more bizarre sexual tack — he once tweeted a Batman “boner alert” GIF in reply to a news update about Bitcoin in El Salvador — and in one 2023 exchange he responded to an insult from another X user by photoshopping an actual cropped photo of a scrotum onto the Twitter user’s face in their profile picture.

He’s also posted anti-vaccine content and far-right antisemitic conspiracies about “globalists” and George Soros; in one tweet he attacked Human Rights Watch Americas Deputy Director Juan Pappier as a “Soros puppet” for criticizing Salvadoran President Bukele.

Other posts of his dehumanize LGBTQ+ people as “disgusting” and “satanic” child predators, and maliciously misgender trans people, call for “straight pride” or suggest gay men “stop the spread of monkeypox” by wearing diapers.

Another meme he posted expressed a desire for “throwing communists out of helicopters,” echoing a popular far-right meme paying tribute to Chilean military dictator Augusto Pinochet, whose regime murdered ~3,200 people and tortured ~20,000 in a campaign to repress political dissidents.

Some posts by Bermudez flirt with overt racism, bashing “BLM” or claiming discrimination against white people exists in the USA by citing alleged “black on white crime.” Others embrace it outright: a July 2023 tweet echoed white nationalist talking points demonizing “brown people at the border,” while one particularly racist meme he shared in February 2022 advertised “Free Crack Pipes” for “Black History Month.”

No Comment!

Heartbeat of Miami did not respond to requests for comment on the organization’s connections to the far-right. Avila and Bermudez are likely not the only affiliates of the organization to promote far-right activity, public Facebook posts indicate.

Giselle Perez, a member of Heartbeat of Miami’s Board of Directors, shared discredited claims denying the 2020 election, favoring the January 6 insurrection, and spreading “globalist control” COVID-19 conspiracy theories that echo antisemitic tropes. Raisa Schubert, another board member, shared posts demonizing transgender people and immigrants as well as conspiracy videos featuring Alex Jones of Infowars. Schubert also posted content from British anti-Muslim demagogue Douglas Murray alongside a video from ‘Jews for Jesus’ claiming to have found Jesus’ teeth.

Ethel C. Palaci, a counselor at Heartbeat of Miami’s clinics, posted that she was taking hydroxychloroquine as a “vaccine” to treat COVID-19, casting doubt on the quality of medical advice on offer to those who make their way through Heartbeat’s doors.

Fundraising Tour by Bigoted Aspiring Influencer 

In February 2023, far-right YouTuber and social media personality Linda Catalina Cuadros posted a virtual tour of the Heartbeat of Miami facility, telling her audience that she was trying to raise $10,000 so that the organization could open a new clinic. Later that year, Cuadros posted on Instagram that she’d raised $2,248 for the facility after more than six months of fundraising.

The goal of the fundraiser was to help Heartbeat of Miami open a fifth facility in the Miami area. “There are no pregnancy clinics south of Kendall,” said Cuadros. “So any contributions helps.”

During the tour, Cuadros posed for photos with Avila and Bermudez.

Her relationship with Heartbeat of Miami seems to go beyond the single fundraising video — tweets by Bermudez feature her modeling his ‘Bukele 2024’ hats that he sells online, implying at least one business tie between Cuadros and Heartbeat of Miami’s Board of Directors.

Cuadros’ online footprint features a litany of anti-LGBTQ, anti-vaccine and pro-Russia propaganda, conspiracy theories, as well as racist and antisemitic statements. She also runs a business selling “affordable luxury jewelry” over the internet.

Cuadros co-hosts the podcast “Mostly Peaceful Latinas” with Isabella Rodriguez, who was likely in the crowd that entered restricted Capitol grounds during the January 6, 2021 attack on Congress; video Rodriguez posted to her Telegram was filmed from inside the crowd immediately outside Capitol entrances under siege. Rodriguez, also known as “redpillbabe,” has been a longtime QAnon influencer and also dabbles in ‘flat earth’ conspiracies.

Posts made by Cuadros to X/Twitter (she is the one who tweets from her and Rodriguez’ podcast account, according to the account’s bio) openly bash “homo[s]” for “unnatural behavior,” and refer to “blacks” as “uneducated minorities” while describing herself as “genetically superior.”

A post on Cuadros’ “wakeupwithlinda” Telegram channel warned her followers of “black racism,” adding that “they want us to be the slaves of the blacks.” (See our 2018 report about the false South Africa ‘white genocide’ message pushed by white supremacists.)

In addition to racism and homophobia, Cuadros’ online posts feature antisemitism, bemoaning the perceived liberalism of “Blacks and Jews”, and “having to walk on egg shells for a tiny minority,” accusing Jews of feigning “perpetual victimhood”. In September 2023, she tweeted “So Kanye was right” apparently referencing the rapper’s public statements of backlash regarding antisemitic outbursts.

Another post on Cuadros’ Telegram depicts killing antifascists by dropping them out of a helicopter in the “Pinochet helicopter rides” meme format generally used by alt-right fascists or other far-right groups to express their desires to murder their critics. The image also features Pepe the Frog, a figure often used as a fascist icon by neo-nazis against the wishes of its original creator. The group she specifically threatened was Miami Against Fascism, an anonymous anti-racist group and the first to publicly document Cuadros’ antisemitism, racism and far-right connections.

The FACE Act 

Despite all evidence that the Hialeah Heartbeat of Miami facility is primarily a political, and not a medical, operation, U.S. Attorneys chose to prosecute three Miami pro-choice activists with a statute specifically designed to criminalize attacks on abortion clinics: the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act. (A later plea deal in the case dropped these counts against all defendants.)

The FACE Act was created under the Clinton administration to respond to the rising number of increasingly confrontational anti-abortion direct actions that were taking place across the country at abortion clinics. The act prohibits, in part, “intentionally injuring, intimidating, or interfering with,” any person “obtaining or providing reproductive health services.” (UR briefly encountered Operation Rescue cofounder Randall Terry at Supreme Court protests in Washington, D.C. in 2022, a key player in attempts to block abortion access during the 1990s.)

The Miami cases appear to be the first time the FACE Act has been used against pro-choice activists. Since the Miami cases began, prosecutors in Ohio have also used the statute to bring charges against a 20-year-old pro-choice college student accused of spray-painting an anti-abortion “clinic” in Bowling Green, Ohio.

Heartbeat of Miami also filed a civil suit against the defendants in the Miami case, alleging damages and demanding compensation under the FACE Act. But while the anti-abortion far-right Christian group is leveraging the FACE Act to its benefit, it has publicly endorsed an anti-abortion group that is currently being sued for openly violating the same law.

Heartbeat of Miami’s October 13, 2023, fundraising Gala ended with a speech from Father David Nix of Red Rose Rescue, a militant Roman Catholic anti-abortion group whose sole purpose is to carry out clinic invasions at actual reproductive health facilities. Nix and Red Rose Rescue openly describe their activities as illegal and predicated on the intention to interfere with medical procedures, but attempt to sugarcoat this in civil disobedience terminology seemingly appropriated from civil rights movements.

Founded in 2017, Red Rose Rescue’s mission is to carry out what they misleadingly call “rescues” at abortion facilities by barging into and disrupting appointments with the supposed pretext of delivering non-consensual religious “counseling.” Its members also often blockade clinics using tactics like bike-locking shut a clinic’s security gate. The New York Attorney General sued Red Rose Rescue in federal court under the FACE Act “for invading reproductive health care clinics, threatening staff and clinicians, and terrorizing patients” and last month said they are pursuing contempt fines against Red Rose Rescue for continuing to harass Planned Parenthood clinics in violation of an injunction issued in the case.

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Summer 2024: Defendants Plea Out

The cases against those accused of spray-painting the Heartbeat of Miami facility continued to move through the courts until the defendants pleaded out in June 2024. The U.S. Attorneys asserted that the Hialeah facility was a reproductive health facility in the plea agreements. In July 2023, attorneys for one of the defendants filed a motion seeking to dismiss the case on the grounds that the Hialeah facility is not a “‘reproductive health services’ provider.” Crisis pregnancy clinics, the motion argued, “are non-profit organizations that are often Christian-affiliated and assert that they provide pregnancy testing and ‘counseling,’ but seek to intercept people looking for abortions.”

The motion draws on a civil case from the Eleventh Circuit, Raney v. Aware Woman Center for Choice, in which an anti-abortion activist, Meredith T. Raney, Jr, alleged that police officers had violated the FACE Act when they removed him from the entrance of an abortion clinic in Florida. Raney claimed to be offering counseling services to those entering the abortion clinic. 

In that case, the Court ruled that Congress intended the FACE Act to differentiate between “trained professionals who work in credentialed facilities and unregulated volunteer counselors who are not attached to recognized providers of reproductive healthcare.”

Highlighting the “credentialed facilities” aspect of the case, the defense in the Miami case argued that the Hialeah facility does not qualify as a medical facility under the FACE Act. “If a facility or provider is not licensed or credentialed, and is not operated by trained healthcare professionals, it does not provide ‘reproductive health services’ under the plain language of the FACE Act,” the defense argued. 

In August, U.S. District Judge Virginia Hernandez Covington ruled against (PDF) the defense’s motion, agreeing with the prosecution that the ruling in the Raney case “did not imply, much less expressly hold, that credentialing and licensing were elements that must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt” for the FACE Act to apply.

The court also ruled that the question of whether or not the Hialeah facility offers “reproductive health services” was a “factual question for the jury,” but this became moot after the pleas were entered in June.

Three defendants in the federal criminal case took a plea deal in June 2024 to a single count of Conspiracy Against Rights (18 U.S.C. § 241) – so a jury will never decide whether the prosecution’s initial use of the FACE Act against pro-abortion advocates holds water or not. In the likely event the same charges are leveled against those who take direct action against “fake clinics” like Heartbeat in the future, it would set precedent for prosecutions against the reproductive justice movement for decades to come. 

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Unicorn Riot's coverage on Abortion and Reproductive Rights:

• FBI Harasses Activists in Florida; Two Indicted on Federal Charges for Jane’s Revenge Actions - Feb. 26, 2023
• Richmond Abortion Rights Rally Highlights Intersections of SCOTUS Ruling - July 29, 2022
• July 4th Abortion Protests in Washington, D.C. - July 4, 2022
• The End of Federal Abortion Protections Isn’t the End of Abortion Access - June 25, 2022
• Dozens in Boulder Protest Christian Nationalist Group and its Spreading of Extremism - June 23, 2022
• Leaked U.S. Supreme Court Abortion Draft Decision Incites Protests - May 3, 2022
• A Fight to Defend Abortion in Brooklyn: Clinic Defense and New York City for Abortion Rights - April 9, 2022
• Freedom of Choice Under Fire in Ohio - Jan. 5, 2022
• “Abortion is Sacred:” The Past and Present of Reproductive Rights - Oct. 14, 2021
• Patients Face Daily Harassment Outside Planned Parenthood in Denver - Nov. 10, 2018

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