Insurance Refunds for Anti-Choice Students?
Here’s something interesting - Harvard Right To Life (HRL) has been sending cards to those students with Blue Cross Blue Shield insurance that explains to them how to get a refund for the portion of their insurance payment that covers abortions. During the 06-07 school year, 128 refunds were given out and Jeffery Kwong, HRL president, said that this year the organization had collected 400 requests to deliver to the administration.
There’s been the expected controversy, of course:
Sean Mascali, president of the university’s Students for Choice group, said the ability to obtain refunds from insurance because of moral beliefs is “troubling” and should not be allowed. Mascali said, “It’s dangerous and incredibly scary for special interests to dictate the health needs of the Harvard community, especially when those interests don’t seem to appreciate the gravity of the health concerns that students face.”
I’d love to pretend I thought it was that simple of an issue. I probably would have two years ago, before BGSU cut abortion funding out of their student health insurance, and instead made it an opt-in procedure. Yeah, that’s realistic. Can’t you just see a 17 or 18 year old girl asking her parents, “Hey mom and dad? Can you please pay the extra money so I can have an abortion just in case I need one?” I don’t know about you, but even my pro-choice parents would have shit their pants. Understanding that there was a need for compromise (I may not support anti-choice beliefs, but I believe they have a right to think that way), the rest of my feminist org and I pushed for an opt-out procedure, assuming that those who didn’t really care wouldn’t bother to opt-out, and only those with a vehement belief that their funds not be used for abortion would opt-out.
Yeah, it’s a slippery slope. Could someone object to another type of treatment due to cultural, religious, or personal reasons? Maybe, although I don’t think the administration would have given a blanket sort of “okay” to opt-out requests. And even though I believe that the point of insurance is to shoulder all financial burdens equally, it makes me feel a little squicky to force those who don’t believe in abortion to help pay for one, even if it is only a dollar per semester. It drives me insane that part of my tuition went to fund Falcons for Life, but that’s the way the tuition system works. And maybe that’s the way all insurance should work, but I can’t help that it makes me uncomfortable.
An example I like to use, although flawed, is that if my campus was super conservative, and instead of having a Women’s Health Center where contraceptives and abortion referrals were given, they had a type of crisis pregnancy center where they did all the crisis pregnancy type of stuff - free pregnancy tests, anti-choice propaganda, making patients watch The Silent Scream, that kind of bullshit, I would fight tooth and nail to keep my money from going there.
It is possible, on any given campus, that so many anti-choicers might decide to opt-out that the co-payment for an abortion becomes prohibitive. That’s something to look at, of course. And I’m certainly having to check my own class privilege here, but I’ll suggest that having a price increase from $50 to $60 dollars if anti-choicers decide to opt-out is still way better than paying 300-500$ for one at a clinic without insurance.
Still. All that typing and I know there is more discussion to be had. That’s my problem. I’d love to take a hard line against this kind of stuff, but then I worry that I’m no better than the opposing camp. I’d love to say “Oh, too bad, you still have to pay that portion of your insurance,” but then I wonder if it’s analogous to an anti-choicer telling me that “Oh too bad, your money is going to fund our anti-choice clinic on campus!” It’s a hard one, for sure.