This article originally appeared on VICE Sweden
In honour of World Contraception Day, which is today, the Swedish Association for Sexuality Education (RFSU) are asking NASA to send a condom to outer space. That’s not because they fear that aliens will travel to earth and have unprotected sex with humans. It’s because they think the condom is one of the greatest interventions our civilisation has come up with – ever.
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Still, 6,000 people worldwide are infected with HIV every day. Aids-related diseases kill over a million people every year. And in 2016, 225 million people still don’t have access to contraceptives. I called up Emma Günther at RFSU to find out how they think NASA can change this alarming trend.
VICE: How did this idea come about?
Emma Günther: We want to focus on contraceptives. Especially condoms, because they are essential in the fight against poverty, and they enable people to make their own decisions over their bodies in terms or reproduction. So we’ve been working with this for years.
Why approach NASA though?
We’ve noticed that one of the most effective ways to communicate important things is to use humour and to surprise people. If NASA were to send a condom to outer space, everyone would talk about contraception so much more. We think so anyway. That’s what we want. For contraceptives to be prioritised, politically.
So you’re not hoping for just a global campaign, but a universal one?
Exactly. The wider the better. We know that when things get attention abroad, they get even more attention in Sweden. If we reach outer space we will get the world’s attention, too.
Have you talked with someone at NASA?
No, we wrote an open letter to NASA today on World Contraception Day. Hopefully they’ll get the message.
Are you guys working on something else for today?
Our message to NASA is our project for World Contraception Day this year. We’re also part of a global network called International Planned Parenthood Federation. We’ve asked them to share the message of the #swedishspacecondom. The more people talk about it the better. There’s a huge lack of contraceptives in the world at the moment. And that needs to change.
Do you believe in aliens?
I believe in some kind of life. I have no idea what it might look like. But I’d love it if they got hold of a condom.
More from VICE:
We Asked People About the Times Condoms Have Broken On Them During Sex
Trying to Understand the New Trending Teen Craze, the #CondomChallenge
