Last week a bill passed, 129 to 125, in the Argentinian congress to legalize abortion and is now being sent to the Senate. This debate was voted upon for 23 hours and advocated for, and against, for months in the streets.
The symbol for those pro-legalization is a green bandana with the slogan “Educación sexual para decidir, anticonceptivos para no abortar, aborto legal para no morir” or, sexual education to decide, anti-contraceptives to avoid abortion, and abortion to avoid death, written on it. These bandanas are omnipresent, used as accessories, tied on backpacks, and worn by dogs all throughout the city. During the night of the debate, a sea of green flooded about half the park in front of the congress, the other half filled with those against legalization, both sides chanting with signs and hopes that the congress will sway towards their side. I have never seen so much passion.
My community partner is a clinic in the outskirts of Buenos Aires, there are both doctors that travel from the city and health promoters from the barrio which help tailor the clinic to the needs of the community. This creates a very interesting mixture of opinions as the doctors are mostly pro-choice, most notably the gynecologist who proscribes misoprostol, a drug to induce a labor or abort an early pregnancy, and the older women who are the health promoters that are steadfast in their catholic beliefs.
I have been working with the gynecologist and psychologist to create a presentation and game about sexual education and the abortion law that stands and the possibility of the new one. Because, whether or not this law passes through the Senate, it is critical that students be educated in sexual education. To produce a discussion containing an expansive overview we created a relatively simple board game where the students roll a die and then have to answer a question or true/false statement about topics from methods of contraception to sexually transmitted infections to move along the board. This made the discussion interactive and fun which has kept the students interested in learning more.