Getting into the groove of the school season brings familiar challenges, including the ongoing fight over abortion. While hearts and minds are engaged in campus debates, another battle unfolds quietly: student insurance plans that cover abortion. 

We have Harvard University to thank as the “trailblazer.” A few years after Roe v. Wade’s establishment, the school’s paper, Harvard Crimson, announced in November 1976 that elective abortions would be included in its regular health care services.  

Rest assured, though, Harvard’s University Health Services won’t “perform abortions,” but rather would send them off to abortion facilities with $150 bucks. For the record, $150 is roughly $850 in 2025 adjusted for inflation.  

Nearly 50 years later, even after Roe’s demise, four-year colleges in nonrestrictive abortion states followed in Harvard’s bloody footsteps. While not an exhaustive list, Students for Life of America (SFLA) has kept a keen eye on abortion sanctuary states like California and New York, but also Illinois, New Jersey, North Carolina, and Washington.  

In California: One of America’s most dangerous states for the preborn takes the leading role in dorm room abortions. In January 2023, California enacted a state law requiring its public universities to give out Chemical Abortion Pills at student health centers. California even compelled religious schools to comply if using state-regulated insurance plans, with some Catholic universities switched to alternative arrangements to avoid this mandate. 

In New York: In May 2023, New York enacted a law requiring all public colleges (SUNY and CUNY systems) to provide access to Chemical Abortion Pills for students either on campus or through referrals. New York University (NYU) boasted of its ghoulish 100% coverage of abortions for any reason in its student insurance plan. In short, virtually all major four-year institutions in New York, public of private, offer insurance that foots the bill for preborn death, with NYU and Columbia University being chief among them.  

In Illinois: The 2019 Reproductive Health Act, which requires private health insurance, Medicaid, and ACA Marketplace Plans, to cover abortions, forced Illinois universities to cover abortion in their health plans as an “essential service.” 

Other States: Oregon, Washington, Maine, New Jersey, and Minnesota have laws that mandate colleges include abortion coverage in their health plans. Oregon’s Reproductive Health Equity Act makes sure all health plans, including student plans, covers the cost of preborn death. This includes the University of Oregon and Oregon State University.  

Washington has a similar law from 2018, requiring maternity care to also cover abortions. Maine’s 2019 law also mandates coverage, so University of Maine system campuses and others include abortion. In 2022, New Jersey implemented an insurance requirement. Now, colleges like Rutgers University provide coverage for abortion in their student health plan. Minnesota recently added abortion coverage requirements (as of 2023-24 reforms), which will affect university plans as well. In all these states, virtually every four-year college’s student health plan offers abortion coverage by law, treating in a backwards world as some “standard health service,” which doesn’t apply to the preborn child being killed, nor the mother who has the abortion.  

Sadly, some colleges choose to offer abortion even when there’s no specific mandate to, which according to Young America’s Foundation (YAF) 2019 findings, Yale University, Brown University, and University of Pennsylvania, offer university covered abortions.  

With over 2,600 four-year colleges across the U.S., tracking every abortion-covering insurance plan is no small feat. But one thing’s clear: as Students for Life Action surges toward 1,600 active groups, we’re on track to reach every college student with a life-saving message: one that rejects deadly Chemical Abortion Pills and surgical abortions. 

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