Freeda Womb on display in Missoula to support reproductive rights in Montana

Jillian Richards, a campus organizer for Planned Parenthood Montana, showcases Freeda Womb. (Keila Szpaller/The Daily Montanan)

An inflatable 20-foot-tall IUD named Freeda Womb (get it?) swayed over the Missoula County Courthouse lawn on Thursday behind speakers reminding people to support reproductive rights.

“Perfect name,” said Lisa Schindler of Missoula.

Schindler was one of roughly a dozen people who turned out to support Freeda, standing in favor of the right to contraception and Constitutional Initiative 128, a measure on the November ballot to protect the right to an abortion in Montana.

Freeda heads Friday to an event in Bozeman, on the IUD Express Tour sponsored by Americans for Contraception.

On the same day, former President and current GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump will speak in Bozeman .

Thursday on the courthouse lawn in Missoula, Mariah Welch said she was excited to stand up for access to sexual and reproductive health care. Speakers also urged people to register to vote and cast their ballots.

“I am an enrolled member of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe. I’m a lawyer. I’m a board member of Planned Parenthood of Montana. And I am a proud owner of an IUD,” Welch said, with Freeda standing firm behind her.

Planned Parenthood Advocates of Montana also sponsored the event in Missoula.

Welch said birth control mailed to the reservation allowed her family to continue their education and grow the family when the time was right for them. It allowed her friend to be a college athlete and decide when she wanted to bring “her two little cuties” into the world.

Welch said it’s important to her own personal life as well.

“The birth control that Planned Parenthood provided me granted me the opportunity to leave an abusive relationship, graduate as a first generation college student, attend law school, and will allow me the opportunity to plan my future family when the time is right for me,” Welch said.

Stephanie McDowell, executive director of Bridgercare, said attacks against birth control are real and already happening, and she thanked U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, a Montana Democrat, for co-sponsoring the Right to Contraception Act.

The act didn’t turn into law , however. Mary Sullivan, with Planned Parenthood Advocates of Montana, said Republicans in the U.S. Senate blocked the policy even though 80% of American voters support it.

“Let me be very clear that extremist anti-abortion politicians are trying everything that they can to undermine our privacy and our health care,” Sullivan said.

In fact, McDowell said politicians in states such as Virginia, Nevada, Arizona, Florida, Idaho, Iowa and Missouri are blocking protections for birth control.

“Let there be no mistake. In the aftermath of Roe’s fall, the threat to birth control is very, very real,” McDowell said.

She said polling by the Kaiser Family Foundation shows one-in-five U.S. adults worry that the right to contraception is under threat, and less than half of adults feel the right to use birth control is secure.

“This isn’t freedom. It’s oppression, and it doesn’t belong in the United States today,” McDowell said.

Trent Taylor, a family medicine doctor in Missoula, said he is honored to be part of the decisions his patients, including pregnant women, make about their care. He said he didn’t think people wanted Gov. Greg Gianforte in the room to help either.

Gianforte, a Republican, has signed numerous bills that aim to restrict abortion , but many have been struck down by the courts. The Montana Constitution protects abortion through a privacy right in the 1999 Armstrong v. State decision by the Montana Supreme Court.

Taylor said in the past, people couldn’t access as many options for contraception as they can today, and some politicians want a return to those days. But echoing a recent and similar refrain from Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, Taylor said numerous times, “We will not go back.”

Taylor also said less than 1% of abortions result in complications: “That’s much better than pregnancy.” A 2023 study from the National Institutes of Health estimates 2%.

One-in-four women will have an abortion in their lifetime, according to a survey by the Guttmacher Institute, Taylor said in an email after the meeting. Guttmacher is a research institute that supports reproductive rights.

KFF notes nine out of 10 women will use some form of contraception in their lifetime. KFF is a source for health policy research, polling and news.

Taylor said before Roe v. Wade in 1973, the country saw 1.2 million home abortions every year, and reproductive freedom was maybe not even dreamed about.

In 2022 in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the constitutional protection for abortion in Roe v. Wade decision, which was also based on the right to privacy.

“Old white men in a city far from here want to take away that freedom,” Taylor said. “They want to go back to a world where an individual had no choices. But say it with me: ‘We will not go back.’”

Freeda Womb is on tour

The Freeda Womb the inflatable IUD will be in Bozeman at 5 p.m. Friday, August 9, on the lawn of the Bozeman Public Library.

Freeda was in Missoula on Thursday.

The Missoula stop is sponsored by Americans for Contraception and Planned Parenthood Advocates of Montana. The Bozeman stop is hosted by these groups along with ACLU of Montana, Forward Montana, Gallatin Democrats, Pro-Choice Montana, She Health and Wellness and MSU Student Advocates 4 Reproductive Rights.

Freeda is on a nationwide tour that already has included stops in Washington, D.C.; Las Vegas; Miami; Tallahassee; St. Louis and Nashville. The visits have attracted headlines and TV coverage at each stop, along with a shoutout on “ The Late Show with Stephen Colbert .”

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to identify Mary Sullivan as representing Planned Parenthood Advocates of Montana, the event sponsor, at this function. (Sullivan is also with Planned Parenthood of Montana but.)