Minneapolis, MN – On January 28, over 60 protesters rallied in front of Abria Pregnancy Resources, a so-called “crisis pregnancy center,” or CPC, to demand its removal from the Northside neighborhood.

Protesters held signs and banners demanding an end to fake clinics, while chanting “Pass more bills, secure our pills!” and “Fund abortion, make it free, fuck the right and CPCs!” Passersby expressed their support vocally and by honking their car horns.

Abria, one of four anti-choice “crisis pregnancy centers'' located in Minneapolis, utilizes deceptive tactics and medically inaccurate information to pressure pregnant people out of getting an abortion. Most of the funding for CPCs comes directly from right-wing evangelical backers.

CPCs set up shop in low-income, predominantly Black neighborhoods like the Northside, knowing that pregnant people seeking abortion resources would have nowhere else to turn to.

Jae Yates, speaking for Twin Cities Coalition for Justice for Jamar (TCC4J), referring to Abria’s predatory practices, said, “This isn’t about human rights, it's about controlling people’s behavior and controlling their bodies and trying to force them to conform to a system of religion that they may or may not believe in.”

Samantha Alsadi, from the Anti-War Committee, spoke of her own personal experience with a CPC when she was seeking abortion resources. “I instantly felt unwelcomed,” Alsadi said, “but didn’t know what else to do. The staff assured me that everything I said to her would remain confidential and under no circumstances would anything I say to her be revealed to anyone else, but here she was telling someone else, getting the police involved, and calling my parents.”

Aldadi continued, “They manipulate people by portraying themselves as some resourceful place someone can go to for help, when all the while they’re only there to scare and coerce people into making decisions the facility wants them to make.”

“Black people have historically chosen abortion as a means to protect from material conditions. As early as when Black people were considered property Black mothers performed their own abortions in an attempt to protect unborn children from enslavement,” another speaker on behalf of TCC4J said. She told of her mother’s experience: “No one explained the health risks to her, the emotional responsibility, the vulnerability, no one explained abortion to her as anything more than a sinful option. She deserved more and that is another reason why I stand here today to fight.”

Alé Guzman, a member of the MN Abortion Action Committee, spoke to the way CPCs drain community resources, saying, “The physical space they use can be utilized a hundred times over for better capacities than a fake reproductive healthcare clinic. This could've been a community bodega, this could’ve been a family's source of income, future and dream. Yet Abria takes up space where they are not needed: shame on you!”

This protest against Abria Pregnancy Resources was organized by the MN Abortion Action Committee and the Twin Cities Coalition for Justice 4 Jamar.

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