"A legislação não permite, você tá ensinando isso?”: uma investigação feminista antirracista sobre aborto no currículo do curso Técnico em Enfermagem do IFBA - Campus Barreiras

Abstract

This paper is on abortion in the nursing technical course curriculum of the Federal Institute of Bahia - Campus Barreiras. This interdisciplinary research articulates feminist theories, critical curriculum theories, nursing, reproductive rights, health professional education, dialectical historical materialism, and theory of analysis of materialist discourse. The question that mobilized this case study is: what does the curriculum of this Technical Nursing course say about humanized assistance to women in the process of abortion? The general objective was to understand the curriculum of the Nursing Technician course of the Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology of Bahia - Campus Barreiras, focusing on humanized assistance to women in the abortion process, with specific objectives: 1. Analyze the Pedagogical Project of the Technical Nursing Course of IFBA - Campus Barreiras; 2. Investigate how the curriculum of the Technical Nursing Course of IFBA - Campus Barreiras includes dimensions of gender, race, class, and abortion 3. Identify discourses on women and reproduction in the curriculum of the Technical Nursing Course of IFBA - Campus Barreiras through teachers and teachers. Since I understand the curriculum as a multidetermined political artifact and the result of historical production, this research analysis prioritizes gender, race, and class determinations. The relevance of this abortion research, a serious public health problem, is related to reproductive autonomy as a social taboo. The analysis of the Pedagogical Project of the Technical Course of Medium Level in Nursing of IFBA - Campus Barreiras highlights: i- the document's concept of society, health, work, education, and pedagogy; ii- the profile of the course's graduates; iii- the conception of the curriculum; iv- and, whether it includes abortion as a piece of knowledge. Understanding the curriculum as a political artifact, I underline the relevance of critical curriculum theory and antiracist feminist theories to analysis. By dialoguing with dialectical historical materialism, the analysis presents possible capitalist articulations between the criminalization of abortion and the reproductive control of women; and racism and patriarchy as dehumanization resources to reinforce such controls. Also, the research underlines the development of modern science as an epistemological field and object of feminist criticism of the sciences, describing the emergence and consolidation of modern nursing and its expansion in Brazil, highlighting the Technical Course of Secondary Level in Nursing and Professional Education in Health. Finally, it produced data, through a virtual focal group with teachers of the course investigated, on the discourses on women, reproduction, abortion, and how they link nursing as a profession associated with the female. Abortion does not appear as knowledge in the formal curriculum but is part of teaching as a present theme in everyday life and not denied by teachers; it is treated during some curricular components of the course, and the teaching of abortion is permeated mainly by moralizing ethics. There are displacements in the discourse on women and reproduction, with a predominant maternal-child conception. Thus, greater attention is required for the implications on women's reproductive health, especially black working-class women.