ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
To find out how college students are faring in a state that has banned abortion, Katia Riddle went to Iowa - one state with a lot of colleges. Some Iowa students say their schools aren't doing enough to make sure they have access to things like emergency contraceptives and birth control, so they're taking it on themselves. Katia reports from Iowa City.
JADA MCDONALD: Pregnancy tests, condoms...
(SOUNDBITE OF BAG RUSTLING)
KATIA RIDDLE, BYLINE: In a small building at the University of Iowa, inside a closet, next to the first aid kit, there are shelves of bags filled with emergency reproductive supplies.
MCDONALD: ...Lubricants, and then a guide on everything, essentially. So we provide Plan B.
RIDDLE: Students Jada McDonald and Morgan Fisher keep the bags here at the Women's Resource and Action Center. They hand them out to students.
MORGAN FISHER: I would say, every couple of days, people come in and ask for them. But it's often empty, and, like, we have to refill it quite often.
RIDDLE: There's nothing illegal in this kit. You can buy Plan B, the emergency contraception pill, over the counter. It can cost more than $40 a dose. These students say it's important to have a place they can get these supplies for free. But advocates say not all college administrators are supportive. Amy Zine is with the group Family Planning Council of Iowa.
AMY ZINE: It's not illegal, and it's not explicitly banned, but some schools and some people are kind of operating in this gray area of I'd rather be overly cautious.
RIDDLE: Zine's group supplies these contraceptives for students to distribute. The initiative is funded through Title X. That's a federal program that provides birth control to low-income groups. When college administrators refuse to hand out these supplies, students have stepped in. Zine says the effort feels clandestine sometimes.
ZINE: I've had conversations where people said, if the school, you know, really comes down hard on us, I'd be happy to meet people off campus and give them what they need there.
RIDDLE: An hour north of Iowa City, Mackenzie Milder has been working on a similar effort at the University of Northern Iowa. She just graduated.
MACKENZIE MILDER: It really broke my heart when I had faculty say we love this. This is amazing, but we can't support it.
RIDDLE: Students weren't allowed to distribute reproductive kits on campus. School officials said restrictions from their accreditor prevented it. Instead, students can get them from the County Health Department off campus. Sitting in the lobby outside one of the school's cafeterias, senior Trina Tounjian points to a page in the pamphlet that comes with the kits.
TRINA TOUNJIAN: Diagrams on how to properly use condoms. Again, in high school, I never was shown that. So, like, I doubt I'm the only one who has no idea how to use that.
RIDDLE: Tounjian says she never took a sex ed class in high school. She worries about students who arrive on campus with no explicit knowledge of birth control and no access to emergency contraception, especially now, when Iowa has just implemented a six-week abortion law.
TOUNJIAN: That's also the most frustrating part with the abortion ban - is you're not given the information on how to family plan, how to prevent, like, eventually needing abortion care or any, like, contraceptive, like, education.
RIDDLE: Research shows that students who have children are far less likely to finish college. Back at the University of Iowa, student Morgan Fisher says she is sympathetic to the position school officials are in.
FISHER: That fear factor is just such a huge role in it.
RIDDLE: Officials from the University of Iowa did not respond to requests for comment. NPR reached out to a number of staff at universities and colleges across Iowa. None would speak on the record. They worried about being fired. Many said there's a perception that advocacy around any kind of reproductive rights is a liberal cause. There's fear around losing funding in this red state. Again, here's Morgan Fisher.
FISHER: We do get a lot of our money from the government, and so that does impact how our campus runs and everything.
RIDDLE: These students say they plan to continue handing out emergency contraception until a law or a human forces them to stop.
For NPR News, I'm Katia Riddle in Iowa City. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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