Students, Taxpayers Forced to Pay for Abortions on College Campuses - Essay Example

The report elicited much outrage from pro-life activists and taxpayers across the nation who wished for this hole in the federal legislation (put in place to stop taxpayer funding of abortions) plugged. Before one can comment on the validity of either the pro-life or pro-abortion viewpoint in this situation, it is important to understand the legislation in question namely, the Hyde Amendment. Passed by the Congress in 1976, the Hyde Act is a legislation that removes abortion from the healthcare services provided to low income groups by the federal government through Medicaid (ACLU, 2004).

The only exception to this law was made in cases of rape, incest or when the woman’s life was endangered by a physical disorder, illness or injury. Though the act has to be renewed every year, it is quite clear in its stand that federal funds are not to be used to fund abortions. The Act was adopted by most states as were subsequent similar legislations that permitted insurance companies to refuse cover to patients for abortions or counsel and referrals related to abortions. In addition to poor women, the act also affected Native Americans, federal employees and dependents, Peace Corps volunteers, federal prisoners, military personnel and their dependents and disabled women relying on Medicare.

The study on healthcare in universities by Students for Life of America (SFLA) examined the systems in 200 universities across the states with regard to university sponsored or subsidized healthcare plans. With data retrieved from the Integrated Post Secondary Education Data System (IEPDS), SFLA discovered that a number of universities (such as in North Carolina) required students to have healthcare plans and automatically enrolled them in plans that covered elective abortions (SFLA 2011). To be precise, 33.

5% of the schools surveyed made it mandatory for students to have healthcare coverage, 97% of these offered school sponsored healthcare plans, 44.3% of this segment offered plans that included cover for elective abortions, and 44% of these schools automatically enrolled their students in these programs. Also, 33% of the 200 schools automatically enrolled the students in school sponsored plans to their accounts and 57% of these plans covered elective abortions (SFLA 2011). While one might argue that the university was being responsible and considerate in ensuring that medical problems and especially unwanted pregnancies did not interfere with the education of their students, there were many who found it hard to digest.

There were two main reasons for this, one being that the healthcare plan was believed to encourage carelessness among youngsters, counteracting decades of sexual awareness campaigns and the second being that this provision was in direct contradiction of the Hyde Amendment and other similar legislations. Grants such as the Pell Grant offered to students use federal funds provided to universities to bridge the gap between the economic capacity of the student and the actual fees of the course. Since some of these universities include their health plans in the students’ fees by default, it indicates that the federal funds are indirectly used to pay for health insurance that covers elective abortion