Students for Life, a national pro-life group, has asked Gov. Bev Perdue to investigate a new health insurance mandate in the University of North Carolina system that includes abortion coverage.
In a letter sent Aug. 19 (PDF download), the group’s president, Kristan Hawkins, called on Perdue to intervene in the growing controversy. Pro-lifers are concerned that UNC system students who opt out of the abortion coverage might still be paying for their fellow students to get elective abortions.
“We have been trying to work with the UNC System but still have many concerns and questions that have not been fully answered,” Hawkins wrote.
The UNC Board of Governors has revised the plan twice since Students for Life first learned of the abortion coverage earlier this month. The new plan allows students who oppose abortion to opt out of the coverage, although they’ll still pay the same premiums.
In a more recent concession, the Board of Governors said the insurance plan would include two policy groupings — one for opted-out students and one not. The goal is to prevent pro-life students’ premiums from flowing to abortion.
But Hawkins worries that the concessions are only window dressing. “It would seem that the UNC decision of creating an ‘opt-out’ policy was only symbolic in nature,” she wrote to Perdue.
Calls and e-mails to Perdue’s press office and UNC System President Erskine Bowles’ office were not returned.
The Board of Governors approved the revised plan for the system’s 16 campuses in August 2009. It mandates that students who aren’t covered by another plan, such as through a parent or employer, purchase coverage through the South Carolina firm Pearce & Pearce.
The mandate applies to students who are taking six or more credit hours as undergraduates (or one hour for graduate students), are degree-seeking, and are eligible to pay the student health fee. Those who can’t afford the insurance can get the coverage free under their school’s financial aid program.
Students’ premiums average around $360 per semester. For opted-in students, the plan covers elective abortions — those deemed medically unnecessary — up to $500 for each procedure, with a 20 percent deductible for in-network providers.
David N. Bass is an associate editor of Carolina Journal.