Minnesotans rally for reproductive justice at pro-choice Mother’s Day rally

Minneapolis, MN – On Mother’s Day Sunday, May 10, the Minnesota Abortion Action Committee (MNAAC) organized a pro-choice Mother’s Day protest across from what was an anti-abortion, Pro Life Action Ministry (PLAM) billboard.

A few days leading up to the protest, members of MNAAC learned the billboard was replaced with a local orthopedic billboard. Despite this change, they continued with the protest with about two dozen attendees to fight for comprehensive reproductive healthcare, oppose abortion restrictions and the attempts of “pro-life” organizations to influence legislation and to shame women.

MNAAC is actively fighting against the existence of “crisis pregnancy centers” (CPCs), or anti-abortion centers, in Minneapolis and Saint Paul, with activists demanding restrictions on the ability of CPCs to spread medical misinformation and demanding state and local regulations to require CPCs to disclose that they do not provide a full spectrum of reproductive healthcare.

CPCs convince unknowingly pregnant people in crisis to not have abortions by using scare tactics and promoting myths about abortion causing depression, cancer and infertility. In Minnesota CPCs outnumber abortion care clinics eleven to one, since there are 90 CPCs and nine abortion care clinics. Anti-abortion attacks continue at the federal level with the recent 5th Circuit ruling that seeks to block remote prescription and delivery of mifepristone by mail.

Activists shared their stories about what it means to have the ability to choose to become a parent and how American imperialism continues to harm mothers.

Jordann Hoff, a member of MNAAC, shared that blocking access to mifepristone via telehealth and delivery by mail will harm nearly two-thirds of people needing to have an abortion, since approximately 63% of all abortions are via medication.

Emily Newberg, a member of Women’s Against Military Madness (WAMM) shared how Palestinian women are using tent scraps for pads and, without aid mothers, are continuing to take care of their children alone as the men have migrated away throughout the war.

River Road Townsend, a member of Twin Cities Coalition For Justice (TCC4J), told their story about receiving a lifesaving abortion during their first trimester because they still had children to take care of, and how they later were able to choose to adopt a child into their family. Townsend calls their family a family of choice; and that reproductive healthcare should not have to come through the intersection of luck and circumstance.

MNAAC is a grassroots, volunteer-based organization fighting for reproductive justice. The pillars of reproductive justice are the right to have a child, the right to not have a child, and the right to parent a child in safe and sustainable communities while maintaining personal bodily autonomy as a human right.

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