Abortion Now Has a Video Game: Pro-Choice Advocates Create New Way to Show 'Plight of Texas Women

Two Texas women have found a unique way to rail against Texas' strict abortion laws.

Poet Allyson Whipple and video game historian Carly Kocurek have come together to create "Choice: Texas, a Very Serious Game." No, it's not a book, scholarly article or documentary. The pro-choice project is a video game that intends to educate its users about the alleged downfalls of the state's abortion laws.

When completed, the game, which is fiction in nature, will be available for free online. While the characters are made up, the situations they face, Whipple and Kocurek claim, will be based entirely on extensive research they have done on abortion restrictions, geography, demographics and other elements facing women in Texas.

A clip produced by the video game creators further explains the project, which tackles "crisis pregnancy" scenarios:

Recent political events in the state led the women to get involved.

"When the big filibuster happened and then the special sessions got called, we realized that this game needed to take way more importance in our creative lives and it became our focus," Whipple told KVUE-TV. "It is a game about awareness and also a game about empathy [and is] sort of like a choose-your-own adventure novel."

Currently, the women are using Indiegogo to fundraise for the project. They need $9,250 and have collected nearly $8,000, with 14 days still to go in their fundraising efforts.

"We are billing Choice: Texas as 'a very serious game,' and we mean that," Whipple and Kocurek write on their fundraising page. "While the game is intended to be engaging, the issues it addresses are very serious."

Players will choose between pursuing an abortion, adoption or becoming a parent. In the process, they will encounter state laws that will showcase how adoption and abortion are generally handled, with a focus on geographic and socioeconomic factors, KVUE-TV reports.

The game essentially promises to "invite players to explore other people's experiences" and in this case "the plight of Texas women." A working prototype is promised by the end of September and, by Feb. 2014, the game should be ready for public consumption.

Featured Image Credit: Allyson Whipple and Carly Kocurek

(H/T: KVUE-TV)

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