Notre Dame to Drop Birth Control Coverage, Named In Pending ACLU Suit

The University of Notre Dame will stop providing birth control coverage to students and employees at the end of the plan year. This has made it one of the targets of a lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union.

Notre Dame sent letters to students and employees on Friday outlining the changes.

Contraceptive coverage is required under the Affordable Care Act.

A recent decision by the Trump administration allows those with religious or moral objections to opt-out of providing birth control coverage. This allowed Notre Dame to completely drop the coverage.

Previously Notre Dame made the coverage available through a third party service separate from the rest of its health insurance.

The ACLU filed suit against the Trump administration over the decision. One of the named plaintiffs is a Notre Dame law student.

An attorney with the ACLU’s reproductive freedom project, Brigitte Amiri said they anticipated that Notre Dame would drop coverage.

“The Trump Administration Policy allows Notre Dame to declare a wholesale exemption and to not even allow their insurance company to provide the coverage, so we anticipated that Notre Dame would be revoking contraception coverage if given the opportunity.”

Amiri said even though the University will still provide contraceptives as a treatment for other medical problems, it is still an infringement on a woman’s rights.

“No matter where a woman works or goes to school she should have coverage for basic health care services like contraceptives regardless of the purpose used for the contraception.”

Birth control coverage for Notre Dame faculty and staff ends December 31, for students it ends August 14, 2018.

The University of Notre Dame declined to comment for this story.