After the U.S. Supreme Court repealed the constitutional right to an abortion, Washingtonians knew their conservative Idaho neighbors would lean hard against a woman's right to choose. Few suspected, however, that things would get so out of hand that the University of Idaho would stop distributing contraceptives based on a 150-year-old law.
That is the advice of the school's legal counsel in a recent memo. Most of the memo focused on a 2021 law. Faculty, staff and administrators must not talk positively about abortion, not recommend a student get an abortion and definitely not expend university resources in service of an abortion. Professors could lead discussions about the politics and policy of it in the classroom, but they must maintain neutrality.
Violators of those rules could lose their job and face prosecution.
