Catholic university in Ohio ends birth-control coverage

[MindMover]

Source: Reuters

(Reuters) - Xavier University, one of the oldest Roman Catholic colleges in the United States, will cut off birth-control coverage for its employees in July, a move that has divided faculty members and students on the Cincinnati campus.

The abrupt cancellation of insurance benefits at the Jesuit university in Ohio comes amid a furious dispute between the Obama administration and the nation's Catholic bishops over contraception.

The administration has mandated that nearly all health insurance plans provide free birth control by this summer, with limited accommodations for religious institutions that oppose contraception on moral grounds. Top Catholic bishops have blasted that mandate as an attack on religious freedom.

President Barack Obama's allies, in turn, have accused the church of obstructing an important benefit for women.

The controversy prompted Xavier President Michael Graham, a Jesuit priest, to review the health insurance plan offered to the university's 935 employees. Graham announced this week in a letter to the faculty that the plan will cease to cover contraception on July 1.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/03/us-usa-contraception-university-idUSBRE83215320120403?feedType=RSS&feedName=domesticNews

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I do not really need Onion.......I have reality............

[benld74]

1. SO they found a health plan the SPECIFICALLY,,,,

BANS the drug used for contraception? ALong with a SCORE of OTHER maladies doctors presribe it for?

[Dawson Leery]

2. What is this?

"Some Catholic education experts said they hoped other colleges would follow Xavier's lead. "This is a very positive move," said Patrick Reilly, president of the Cardinal Newman Society, which pushes Catholic colleges to stay true to the church's teachings."

As I have stated before, if you want a respectable education, STAY OUT OF SCHOOLS WITH RELIGIOUS AFFILIATION!

[starroute]

6. As I recall, the Cardinal Newman Society is basically one guy in his basement

I have some old notes on it from 2009, when it was behind the Obama/Notra Dame dustup. Remember this?

http://cardinalnewmansociety.org/CardinalNewmanSociety/tabid/36/ctl/Details/mid/435/ItemID/446/Default.aspx

As of 10:00 a.m. on Monday, March 23, more than 18,000 people have joined the nationwide campaign urging the University of Notre Dame to rescind the honor of selecting President Barack Obama as its commencement speaker on May 17. The campaign was launched at 6:00 p.m. Friday, March 20 immediately after The White House and Notre Dame made the announcement that Notre Dame would honor President Obama.

The campaign is organized around The Cardinal Newman Society sponsored website, NotreDameScandal.com, which includes an online petition to Notre Dame president Rev. John Jenkins, CSC, and contact information for the university. Catholics are urged to join the campaign, and the petition is being circulated among leaders of other Catholic organizations.


http://www.opednews.com/articles/SCANDAL-Obama-to-Deliver-by-John-Wilson-090321-920.html

As I note in my book, Patriotic Correctness: Academic Freedom and Its Enemies, the Cardinal Newman Society is a right-wing Catholic group (actually, it's a guy named Patrick Reilly and a few of his right-wing friends) that, often successfully, lobbies Catholic colleges to censor liberal views (needless to say, it's never called for banning conservative supporters of the death penalty from speaking on campuses, even though they violate Catholic doctrine).

The group even attacks conservatives. Quincy University commencement speaker (and well-known conservative radio legend) Paul Harvey withdrew in 2003 after the group's criticism of his pro-choice beliefs. Reilly called upon Catholic University of America in 2006 to ban politician Bob Casey from speaking on campus. Although Casey is a Catholic who opposes abortion rights, Reilly proclaimed that "Bob Casey has no business delivering a lecture on public morality" because Casey does not want to ban contraceptives.

The Cardinal Newman Society demands that all Catholic colleges impose an unprecedented regime of censorship; in 2005, the Society presented a list of 18 professors at Catholic Colleges that the group believes should be fired because these professors took a position on the Terri Schiavo case contrary to that of the Vatican. These attacks have had a strong influence on Catholic Colleges, and administrators fear being the next target of the group.

[AlbertCat]

17. STAY OUT OF SCHOOLS WITH RELIGIOUS AFFILIATION!

Indeed. Especially at the college level.

Some may be "one of the best....."

But that means there are other places to choose from that list of "the best".

[msongs]

3. now that's funny - do they even allow women in this place? nt

[niyad]

4. a quote on the rcc from robin morgan

• Although every organized religion works overtime to contribute its own brand of misogyny to the myth of woman-hate, woman-fear, and woman-evil, the Roman Catholic church also carries the immense power of very directly affecting women's lives everywhere by its stand against birth control and abortion, and by its use of skillful and wealthy lobbies to prevent legislative change. It is an obscenity -- an all-male hierarchy, celibate or not, that presumes to rule on the lives and bodies of millions of women.

robin morgan

[jade3000]

5. Unfortunate that they politicized their coverage in this way

They already covered it, but they decided to change it in the midst of these campaign politics. That's weak.

[Skittles]

10. tells us what their "faith" is really all about

[virgogal]

7. I'll be darned---the Jesuits are usually a liberal group.

[dropkickpa]

18. Nope. Still catholic priests.

[Leftcoastgary]

8. I would Bet

that they still cover vasectomies and tubiligations. Just a more permanent type of birth control.

[madrchsod]

9. a foreign state dictating to us citizens it`s choices in healthcare ?

time to treat the so called church as a foreign state instead of a so called church.

[alp227]

11. But do male Xavier employees still get Viagra coverage?

Funny how Catholic priests are supposed to be celibate, yet I've never heard of any serious Catholic lobbying efforts to ban insurance companies from covering Viagra. The Church should just admit it: they are control freaks. Face it, is will NEVER be possible to police the personal lives of your employees, Catholic Church. Just because insurance covers something doesn't mean that the user has to use it. The Church is willing to acknowledge this re Viagra but not birth control. Oh yeah, it seems the Church also wants to police the sex lives of its female workers huh? No sex until marriage, thus no birth control pills? Yet why the cover ups of the priests accused of child abuse (see: Lawrence C. Murphy, Stephen Kiesle)?

[Skittles]

12. OF COURSE!

there's nothing immoral when MEN have sex - only WOMEN

[muriel_volestrangler]

13. It shows how integral birth control is to normal healthcare

if Catholic institutions can have it as part of their coverage and not even realise it.

[Brettongarcia]

14. So Xavier University was hypocritical all those years. And now?

It claimed to be for the Church, and against birth control.

But then it offered contraceptive services, until now.

So? This arm of the Church was hypocritical for so many years.

Whereas now? Now it is merely stupid.

[goclark]

15. What a shame K and R

Women that vote with the Rethugs need to have their heads examined.

[secondwind]

16. Michael Graham doesn't need these pills, so he really doesn't care, does he?

[Javaman]

19. Hypocrisy is thy name...

but the schools president was apparently fine with it up until this faux controversy started.