(28 Sep 2022)
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Moscow, Idaho 27 September 2022
HEADLINE: Abortion guidance banned at Idaho universities
1. Shot of exterior of University of Idaho
2. SOUNDBITE (English): Elise Vonbargen, student:
"People preach like abstinence when that doesn't really work and people do that and saying that you can't isn't going to stop you from doing it, just makes it more unsafe."
++WHITE FLASH++
4. SOUNDBITE (English): Allison Mahieu, student:
"I think it's pretty absurd to do that on a college campus and it's not safe."
5. Various shots of University of Idaho exteriors
ANNOTATION: Idaho universities are warning staffers not to refer students to abortion providers or emergency contraception.
ANNOTATION: They could face criminal charges under a state law. One school also says employees shouldn't tell students how to get birth control.
ANNOTATION: It's the latest restriction in a state that already holds some of the strictest abortion laws in the nation.
STORYLINE:
Public universities in Idaho are warning staffers not to refer students to abortion providers or tell them how to get emergency contraception because they could be charged with a felony, and one is barring employees from recommending birth control, as well.
The guidance from the University of Idaho and Boise State University forms the latest restrictions in a state that already has some of the nation's strictest abortion laws.
"This is going to have a very broad impact. It's going to have a very strong chilling effect on free speech," said Mike Satz, an attorney and former faculty member and interim dean at the University of Idaho's College of Law. "I'm afraid it's going to scare people from going to school here or sending their kids to school at Idaho institutions."
The prohibition against referring students or "promoting" abortion in any way comes from the No Public Funds for Abortion Act, a law passed by Idaho's Republican-led Legislature in 2021. Boise State, like the University of Idaho, told faculty members in a newsletter this month that they could face felony charges for violating the law. Idaho State did not respond to phone messages from The Associated Press asking if it had issued similar guidance.
The law also bars staffers and school-based health clinics from dispensing or telling students where to obtain emergency contraception except in cases of rape. Such drugs prevent pregnancy from occurring and do not work when someone is already pregnant.
The University of Idaho's guidance goes a step further, also warning employees about a pre-statehood law written in 1867. It prohibits dispensing or "advertising" abortion services and birth control leading to UI's advice that condoms be distributed only to prevent sexually transmitted diseases, not to prevent pregnancy. Lawmakers last updated the law in 1974, roughly a year after the U.S. Supreme Court said in Roe v. Wade that women have the right to abortion.
But now that Roe v. Wade has been overturned, state agencies are trying to navigate a morass of tangled reproductive health care laws.

It's not yet clear how the the law barring "advertising or promoting" abortion and birth control services could affect students or other state employees who may use state-owned computers or wireless networks to share information on social media.

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