Beware First Care

By MONICA BICKING

First Care, with a new location soon to open on Chicago Ave and 21st St. is not a clinic, but rather an anti-abortion counseling center. It is an organization owned by Evangelical Christians with an agenda to shame and intimidate pregnant people to mantain their pregnancy and not have an abortion. It is part of a complex and multifaceted strategy to control female bodies and prevent abortions that has made great strides with the recent overturn of Roe vs Wade. While abortion remains legal in Minnesota, anti-abortion activists continue to be hard at work to make sure access to abortion is limited in Minnesota and throughout the country.

As the name implies, the strategy behind First Care is to get to people before they see a medical professional, to be the first “care” a pregnant person receives. Their marketing thickly cloaks their true agenda. Their website suggests that they have the resources needed to help someone prepare for an abortion. It states that if a person wants an abortion, they must first have a pregnancy test, dating ultrasound, abortion education, and STD testing, all services which First Care will provide for someone wanting an abortion for free. And while it also says that First Care does not refer people to abortions in the fine print, it does not mention that the organization is morally and religiously opposed to abortions and provides “care” to pregnant people so that such “care” will dissuade pregnant people from electing abortions.… Read the rest “Beware First Care”