Loyola University in Chicago is being criticized for offering student health plans that cover abortion services. The university is a Jesuit institution that was founded in 1870 with an emphasis on Catholic values, which do not include abortion. However, for the last four years, the school has offered a UnitedHealthcare Student Health Insurance Plan that touts its coverage includes “abortion care services.” The plan also offers “voluntary sterilization procedures,” which also goes against Catholic teaching. The Catechism of the Catholic Church has “affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion.”

The Catholic Diocese of Chicago has not commented on the plan. Saint Xavier University in Chicago, another Jesuit institution, has also offered a health plan that covers abortion services for at least the past two years. Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle told The Fix that “This scandal comes as no surprise,” adding that “Jesuit institutions, contrary to the specific prohibitions of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, routinely give awards, honors and platforms to pro-abortion public figures, and have done so for decades.” Doyle warned that Catholic universities like Loyola and Boston College that offer such plans offer a mixed message about abortion. “By utilizing this healthcare plan, the leadership of Loyola is indeed sending to its student body a[…]  message that the willful murder of the innocent—a sin that crieth to heaven for vengeance—is morally permissible,” he said.

He called on Jesuit institutions to reform from the invasion of “culturally conforming.” “Like the pre-Reformation Church, Jesuit higher education cries out for reform,” he said. An investigation by The Fix found that 1 in 4 Catholic Jesuit universities offer so-called “gender-affirming care.” Boston College’s coverage includes “breast reduction, breast augmentation, breast implants or breast prosthetic devices” for the purposes of “gender affirming or gender dysphoria treatment.” Loyola’s student health plan isn’t the only thing promoting anti-Catholic values. In November 2024, the university’s student newspaper, “The Maroon,” supported “women’s right to an abortion” in an article supporting Kamala Harris’s presidential run. “Christian by name only. Satanic in their actions,” said one user on X. “Most old Christian university have fallen away from the teaching of scripture,” wrote another user. “A name on a school can no longer be trusted.”