Get Support in Minnesota

We know sometimes the hardest things can be asking for help when you’re in need. As AAPI people, we might not have been taught to ask for what we need or perhaps we’ve been told to ignore our own needs for others. We’re glad you’re putting yourself first and seeking the assistance you need. To help you, we’ve collected local resources found below.

Resources

  • Family Tree Clinic

  • There are only 9 places in Minnesota that you can receive abortion care from. However, there are over 100 fake and non-medical “clinics”, also known as Crisis Pregnancy Centers (CPCs) in Minnesota alone. It can often be hard to distinguish real clinics from fake ones, so we have compiled the full list of places to receive abortion care in Minnesota. These CPCs often do not have medical staff and can lie about your health and options. Here is a list of clinics that you can receive an abortion from:

    • Planned Parenthood – St. Paul Health Center – Vandalia

    • Planned Parenthood – Minneapolis Health Center

    • Planned Parenthood – Brooklyn Park Health Center

    • Planned Parenthood – Rochester Health Center

    • Red River Women’s Clinic – Moorhead, MN

    • Robbinsdale Clinic P.A. – Robbinsdale, MN

    • WE Health Clinic – Duluth, MN

    • Whole Woman’s Health of the Twin Cities – Bloomington, MN

    • Just the Pill – online abortion pills

  • As a small, grassroots organization, we seek to fill the gaps in care in our community. As we grow, we hope to continue adding to our resources.

    Financial Assistance

    • Our AAPI Gender and Reproductive Justice Fund is opening soon.


    Support

    • Journeys in Gender and Reproductive Justice can be challenging to navigate and with cultural stigmas it can often be isolating. We want to make sure others don’t feel alone during these times. If you’re looking to talk about these experiences with someone, please reach out here and we’ll reach out to you as soon as we are able.

    • As a kind reminder, we are not mental health professionals, just a listening ear to who might be able to relate to your cultural experiences. If you are in need of mental health resources, please reach out to a professional.

  • Talking about your own experiences can be scary—especially with cultural stigmas around Gender and Reproductive Justice. At Paper Lantern Project, we want everyone to be able to access their own stories and feel comfortable sharing these experiences as we work to change the face of those impacted by these issues.

    1. Keep Yourself Safe

      It’s okay if you aren’t ready to share your story! It can be really scary or potentially retraumatizing. If it is too hard to share your experiences at this point, it’s okay! You don’t have to share things until you’ve processed them. If you want to get it out, you can always write it out in a journal. You can come back to it when you’re ready. While we want to reduce stigmas and barriers, mental safety is important too. You only have to share your experiences with people you feel comfortable with. Sometimes, when we’ve shared our stories just once, it can be easier to share with others. But you don’t have to ever push yourself. Before you get ready to share your story, make sure you’re in the right frame of mind and keep yourself grounded. After you share your story, it’s okay to take some time and decompress with a few deep breaths.

    2. Access Your Stories in Ways that Make Your Feel Comfortable

      Sometimes it can be hard to access our own stories. It can be uncomfortable to talk about ourselves or hard to relive experiences. If you want to access your story, you can enter them in many different ways. You can think about what memories shaped your first experiences with Gender and Reproductive Justice. Or you can think about what messages were told to you about these topics when you were younger. You can think about the ways you’ve felt empowered by Gender and Reproductive Justice or even how it shows up in your day. Once you get comfortable talking about these topics, you can start getting more and more personal with your own story.

    3. It Doesn’t Have to Be Perfect

      Just sharing your story is enough. It doesn’t have to be perfect.

    4. Be Kind To Yourself

      As you get ready to share your story, make sure you’re centering yourself and your needs. Make sure you are well resourced and are at a place you feel emotionally comfortable. Be gentle to yourself and don’t let your inner dialogue be mean to you as you share. You are enough. It’s okay to give yourself what you need.

    5. Validate Your Own Story

      You are doing such important work by sharing your story. Remember, creating new narratives is breaking generational curses. And in sharing our stories we get to re-write and take power in negative messages that might have been shared with us in the past. Your story is valid! What you’ve gone through is real. Keep reminding yourself that as you create your narrative.

Three Things You Should Know About the AAPI Data/AP-NORC Poll Among Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander adults in the U.S.:

1. 79% believe that access to abortion should be legal in all or most cases, and 75% want Congress to pass a law guaranteeing access nationwide.

2. 56% support counseling for transgender adults; 47% support it for minors. 46% back gender-affirming hormone therapy for adults; 30% support it for minors.

3. Most would not vote for someone who didn’t share their view on racism (79%) or abortion (68%), but 54% could vote for a candidate who disagreed with them on the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.

What is Gender and Reproductive Justice?

Gender Justice envisions a world where everyone can thrive regardless of their gender, gender expression, or sexual orientation (as defined by Gender Justice).

Gender inequality is one of the oldest and most pervasive forms of inequality. For centuries it has caused discrimination and exclusion of women, non-binary and trans people from social, political,and economic life. It has also blocked women and the gender marginalized from leadership roles and has led to increasing gender-based violence. (Oxfam)

We use the words Gender and Reproductive Justice a lot! So what is this framework?

Reproductive Justice as the human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy, have children, not have children, and parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities (as defined by Sistersong)

Indigenous women, women of color, and trans* people have always fought for Reproductive Justice, but the term was invented in 1994. Right before attending the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, where the entire world agreed that the individual right to plan your own family must be central to global development, a group of black women gathered in Chicago in June of 1994. They recognized that the women’s rights movement, led by and representing middle class and wealthy white women, could not defend the needs of women of color and other marginalized women and trans* people. We needed to lead our own national movement to uplift the needs of the most marginalized women, families, and communities.