The sweeping new guidance from University of Idaho administrators represents a brutal new reality in red states, where women’s options, speech and academic freedoms are now being dramatically constrained by the misogynist laws that have sprung into effect since the US supreme court’s reversal of Roe v Wade in June.
In Idaho, the guidance is meant to keep professors in line with two laws: Idaho’s 2020 trigger ban, a total, criminal abortion ban that went into effect on 25 August, and a long-dormant 1972 law that makes “advertising” abortion or contraception a felony. According to that law, only licensed doctors may legally provide contraception to people who ask for it and are deemed “sufficiently intelligent and mature”. But the gag rules now in effect there are typical of many red state abortion bans, which now frequently prohibit not just performing abortions, but vocally supporting abortions, providing information about abortion, or helping to provide funds and other material support for abortions – “promoting” them, in Idaho’s parlance.
Ned Hamson's Second Line View of the News 