Pro-Choice Catholic Testimony

I met Sandra in a training session for teachers in a town of 10,000 residents in the middle of the Argentine pampas. She had jet-black hair and bright eyes that illuminated an unwavering smile on her face.

On several occasions, she invited me to go to schools and talk about sexual education. In that city, far from urban centers and with little access to information, the questions and comments that arose from the audience showed a great lack of knowledge about health in general, many prejudices, and a lot of loneliness. Each workshop ended with emotional expressions of relief and confidence. At the end of the meetings, Sandra hugged us, satisfied and grateful for having fulfilled her task as a supportive and selfless intermediary. She told us that her daughter, also a teacher, couldn’t attend these training sessions because she had a small child who demanded a lot of her time.

On one of the trips, Sandra discovered that I had a chain hanging around my neck with an image of the Virgin of Guadalupe. She seemed surprised and told me that she was also a believer and that she had not imagined that I was one because she knew of my activism in defense of the legalization of abortion.

Surely, that is why, on December 30, 2020, in the early morning, while together with many of my colleagues, we were hugging each other in the streets of all the cities of Argentina, I received a WhatsApp message from her number. For many hours the national Congress had debated what later became known as Law 27610 (on voluntary interruption of pregnancy), and its approval came at four in the morning. Sandra, like so many, had followed the debate on television and remembered me in those green-tinged images.

“Congratulations! I hope women will be saved from now on. For my daughter, it is too late. She died two days ago.”

I couldn’t get over my shock. It took me a long time to react. To this day, my skin crawls when I remember it. Her pain is still on my phone as a voice note, shaky and broken. “She didn’t tell me. She thought I wouldn’t support her because of my membership in the church. She turned to someone in the village without telling anyone, alone and ashamed. Something didn’t go right. She started to notice the signs, but she had nowhere to go. The nearest hospital is a three-hour drive away. When her husband convinced her to seek help, she died on the way.”

We met again recently. Sandra’s smile no longer shines. Her eyes are focused on that little boy who replaced his mother with his grandmother. I gave her my green scarf. Tied to her wrist, Sandra hopes it will be a “password” that will overcome prejudices and allow her to offer help to any other woman who needs information and support in a remote town in the Argentine pampas.