 |
|---|
| Home |
| Magazine |
| Interviews |
| Policy Papers |
| Donate |
| Story |
|
University Health Care Abortions Nearly half of the nation’s largest four-year universities, including several in North Carolina, cover elective abortions under their student health care plans, according to a new study by Students for Life of America (SFLA). The SFLA “University Health Care Study,” which was released January 20, examined the health care policies of 200 of the nation’s largest four-year universities. The study found that the overwhelming majority of the 200 universities (95.5 percent) offer school sponsored health plans, and nearly half (45.5 percent) of those plans cover elective abortion. Of the plans that cover elective abortion, 44 percent automatically enroll students in the plans. The study also found that 32.5 percent of the 200 schools automatically charge the health care plan to students’ accounts, and of these schools that do so, 61.5 percent cover elective abortions in the health care plans. According to the SFLA study, the following universities in North Carolina “require health care and automatically enroll their students (after a set date) in a health plan that covers abortions:” UNC-Chapel Hill, UNC-Charlotte, UNC-Greensboro, North Carolina State, East Carolina, and Appalachian State. The SFLA study was inspired by events in North Carolina in July 2010, when the SFLA learned that the University of North Carolina’s 2011-12 health care plan would require students to have health coverage and would automatically enroll students in the school health plan that covers elective abortions. After receiving pressure from the SFLA and other pro-life groups, UNC changed its plan to allow students who enroll in the university health plan but do not want to pay for abortion coverage to opt out of the abortion coverage. As the SFLA report explains, UNC “eventually backtracked from previous statements disavowing abortion coverage in the plan and allowed students to opt-out of the abortion coverage. They also stated that money for the two plans (the money for the abortion health care plan and the non-abortion plan) would be kept separate, even though the two plans would be the same price.” “Abortion is not health care, and colleges and universities should not require students to pay for abortion in their health care plans,” the SFLA study concludes. “Paying for abortion should not be a pre-requisite for learning.” SFLA has established a website, www.noabortioninhealthcare.com, where the full study can be found, as well as specific information on individual universities.Related resources: Copyright © 2011. North Carolina Family Policy Council. All rights reserved.
|
