A few weeks ago, the Trump Administration modified the ACA rule requiring employers to offer birth control services, and the University of Notre Dame, being a Catholic institution, jumped right on board that wagon, as NPR reported at the time:
In an email to faculty and staff, which the university shared with NPR, a spokesman wrote that the school “honors the moral teachings of the Catholic Church.”
Much to my surprise, they’ve fallen right back off that wagon, CNN/Money is reporting:
In his annual faculty address Tuesday, Notre Dame’s president, the Rev. John Jenkins, said the university had decided to keep the accommodation for employees in place.
“As I have said from the start, the university’s interest has never been in preventing access to those who make conscientious decisions to use contraceptives,” he said. “Our interest, rather, has been to avoid being compelled by the federal government to be the agent in their provision.”
A university spokesman confirmed that students would continue to have access to no-cost birth control, as well.
Notre Dame’s initial response was based on its belief that it could no longer utilize the accommodation because the new rule would prompt insurers to discontinue providing no-cost contraceptives. It then learned that carriers would maintain the coverage anyway.
That’s not really congruent with their rationale for removing the accommodation. In fact, it sounds like frantic face-saving to me. My best guess is that Notre Dame administrators suddenly realized that pack of unsavory characters inhabiting the White House these days are more or less the equivalent of Satan, and it reflected poorly on Notre Dame to be taking a handout from them. They decided to look to the future when the GOP was not in charge, when the current Administration had been consigned to the dustbin of history with an almighty thump, and decided they didn’t want to occupy that same dustbin.
