A faculty member at Loyola Marymount University has threatened the Jesuit institution with “legal action” if it drops coverage of abortion in its healthcare plan.
A faculty member at Loyola Marymount University has threatened the Jesuit institution with "legal action" if it drops coverage of abortion in its healthcare plan.
The administration and the president of the university, David Burcham, recently announced that the university was dropping abortion coverage from the health plan. The news was shared with faculty and staff via a letter, that said, in part, “We are writing to inform you of a change in LMU’s health benefits coverage regarding elective abortions and to correct some misrepresentations that have been reported about how this change occurred.” The letter was dated Aug. 15, 2013, the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
That decision—which is expected to be made final in a board of trustees meeting today, Oct. 7, 2013—has caused widespread protest from many faculty and staff.
But, LMU Sociology professor Anna Muraco is taking it a step further. In an interview with The Argonaut (a Southern California-based publication), she indicated that should the Board of Trustees decide to drop coverage of abortion she might consider taking “legal action.”
“The fact that the university seems to be able to dabble in our healthcare sets a very dangerous precedent,” she said. “I would not be against filing some sort of legal action.”
Burcham, in an open letter, recently warned against “intellectual bullying or intimidation, whether the source be internal or external.”
According to The Argonaut, she said that the decision by the administration to drop the coverage is not in line with the Jesuit tradition of social justice telling the publication, “There cannot be social justice without reproductive (coverage).”
Muraco, who recently penned a piece on this issue for the pro-abortion rights website RH Reality Check, seemed surprised that this was an issue at all.
“If women cannot control their reproductive lives, then there is not workplace equity,” she reportedly said. “Why are we still having these conversations?”
Originally published by The Cardinal Newman Society’s Catholic Education Daily on 7 October 2013.
