University of Idaho students are reacting to a memo sent to employees that restricts contraceptives and limits how abortion is talked about on campus.
The email to staff says the school would restrict access to birth control because it wanted to ensure it complied with a 2021 Idaho law that bans the promotion of abortion.
The email was sent last week, but it didn’t get a lot of reaction from students until media outlets picked up on it.
Fourth-year student Emily Nunes says she received the email sent to employees and was shocked when she read it.
"I thought at first it was going to be an email kind of helping us navigate these new laws in a positive way and how we can still be able to interact or like not interact," says Nunes. "It didn't even cross my mind that it would be such a restrictive ban on talking about it."
Second-year student Chris Howington says he heard about the email in a class and doesn’t agree with the school’s move to restrict birth control.
“Sexual health care and reproductive health is just as big a part of student life as any other part of their health," he says. "It's still very important to students, and to just push it away and pretend that it's not something that exists is super ignorant.”
The University of Idaho declined to comment on this story, but on recent university social media posts about a football game win, comments were filled with criticism about the email.
