BOZEMAN — If you were on the Montana State campus Tuesday afternoon, something might have caught your eye.
Freeda, a 20-foot-tall inflatable IUD, has been traveling across the country as part of national group Americans for Contraception’s “IUD Express” tour. Since June 5, Freeda has visited 28 cities in 12 different states, making postcards of each stop along the way.
Montana State University student groups and Bozeman community organizations joined this tour to highlight the need to protect Americans' reproductive freedoms. One organization attending was Forward Montana. Taryn Van Steeland is a voter engagement and reproductive rights organizer with Forward Montana. She told me why Freeda’s IUD express tour is so important.
“Birth control and things like this around pregnancy can be really stigmatized. So, I think it’s just bringing her out here, this giant inflatable IUD, and starting that conversation. Normalizing it. Why birth control is normal. Why birth control is reproductive care. And why we should keep that protected for folks,” says Van Steeland.
Monday, Freeda was seen in Missoula at the University of Montana Oval. On Wednesday, the famous inflatable IUD will be on the Yellowstone County Courthouse lawn in Billings.
