EDITORS' CORNER
Pro-life student group slams university for caving to pressure, noting its Christian roots
Duke University will pay for students to abort unborn babies in elective abortions after several groups, including a campus Planned Parenthood chapter, lobbied the institution to expand coverage in its health insurance plan.
Students for Life of America, which has more than 1,600 student pro-life groups across the country, swiftly criticized the university for giving into the student activists’ demands.
“But instead of standing its ground, Duke, which began as a Christian school and still houses one of the nation’s 13 United Methodist seminaries, caved to the pressure, updating its plan to include abortion coverage,” the pro-life organization wrote Wednesday on its blog.
Initially, the North Carolina university only included limited coverage for abortions in its student health insurance plan under a May agreement with its new provider, Aetna, The Duke Chronicle reports.
As the student newspaper reported, “the initial draft of the new Aetna plan excluded both abortion pills and procedures as eligible health services, except in cases of rape, incest or ‘if it places the woman’s life in serious danger.’”
However, the Duke Graduate Student Union, campus Planned Parenthood chapter, and others created a petition demanding that the health insurance plan cover, among other things, elective abortion-on-demand for students, according to the report.
“Duke Administration has decided -without the input from students- that only incest, rape, and life-threatening conditions warrant said coverage. North Carolina State Law does not pose any such restriction, and Aetna does offer in-network coverage for abortions,” the petition states.
“Duke must provide elective abortion coverage (and comprehensive reproductive care) to the full extent allowed under North Carolina law,” it states.
More than 800 people signed the petition, including community members and alumni, and organizers delivered it to campus leaders on June 8, the report states.
The new insurance plan, published that same day, offers coverage for abortions without limits.
The student newspaper reported more on the situation:
[University spokesperson Rezin] Davis attributed the initial exclusion of abortion care to the draft’s incomplete nature.
“Some concerns raised in recent weeks were based on an incomplete draft document that was shared as part of a required review process before benefits were finalized,” Davis wrote.
[Duke Graduate Student Union co-chair Riley] Wolfe was skeptical that the initial exclusion of most abortion coverage was temporary. He believes that the union’s intervention and student outcry prompted the changes seen in the final version.
“If you really look at what has changed between those plans, they are things that were in the petition,” Wolfe said. “… Elective abortion coverage, the vision coverage, the expanded network, the mental health copay, these are really specific things that were in our petition.”
Lamenting the news, Students for Life spokesperson Mary Mobley wrote Wednesday that Duke University has “lost its way.”
“… Duke’s decision is especially sad given its origin as a school founded by Quakers and Methodists and originally known as ‘Trinity College,’” Mobley wrote.
“It’s time for it to return to its true purpose: educating students in virtue, not empowering them to end the lives of preborn babies,” she wrote.
MORE: Colorado Democrats pass law requiring campuses to stockpile abortion drugs
