Lobbying Theater

Swaying the opinion of legislators often requires creativity. So a women's group called Sistren Theatre Collective of Jamaica took matters into their own hands and put together a play for Jamaican parliamentarians currently considering a draft law on when abortions can be legally allowed.

Presently, Jamaica is governed by a law that states abortions are illegal, except in the case of rape, incest or an extreme abnormality. However, some pro-choice activists complain that the poor do not have access to hospitals nor can they afford to pay for doctors that perform abortions when legal exceptions occur. (For other kinds of abortions, women can receive life imprisonment and doctors are given three-year prison sentences if they perform an abortion.)

The Sistren group’s 10-minute play, entitled A Slice of Reality on the Ground, dramatizes the multitude of reasons behind why they believe poor women should be allowed to choose whether to abort. The play shows, for example, how some women are forced into relationships with men who are abusive or violent. A March 2009 study by the Guttmacher Institute, for example, found that almost half of the 750 females between 15 and 17 in Jamaica that they interviewed reported violence or coercion into sex.

Here’s a video on YouTube showing the Sistren group performing their play for Jamaican politicians: