(Newser)
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The Franciscan University of Steubenville has decided to discontinue its entire student health insurance plan as a way to duck the Obama administration's contraceptives mandate. While a number of Catholic institutions have protested the mandate, the Ohio school is the first to actually drop its coverage, the Huffington Post reports. It has also dropped its requirement that students carry insurance.
The health care reform law "has mandated that all health insurance plans must cover 'women’s health services' including contraception, sterilization, and abortion-causing medications," the school wrote in a statement on its website. "We will not participate in any plan that requires us to violate the consistent teachings of the Catholic Church on the sacredness of human life." Of course, as the HuffPo notes, the mandate doesn't actually include "abortion-causing medications," and thanks to a religious exemption, the insurance company would technically be paying for all contraceptives.
