San Francisco, CA (LifeNews.com) -- The University of San Francisco (USF) may be a Catholic educational institution but officials there have crafted a new student health care plan that covers abortions. A leading pro-life group that serves as watchdog for Catholic colleges says its wrong for a health insurance policy to include abortion.

Full-time undergraduate students at USF are automatically enrolled in the university's plan unless they request a waiver and prove that they have other, comparable insurance.

The Catholic Key obtained USF documents about the plan that show that it was “developed especially for eligible University of San Francisco students and their eligible dependents.”

To Patrick Reilly, president of The Cardinal Newman Society, that means the USF signed onto a specially-developed plan especially for its students instead of signing up for a generic plan that may or may not have included abortion.

As a result, Reilly says it appears to him that USF officially specifically requested a health insurance plan that covers abortions.

“Given the importance of life issues for Catholics, it is stunning that USF’s student health program would pay for abortions,” Reilly told LifeNews.com on Thursday. “I pray that this was a mistake and not a willful action of the Catholic university, but regardless of how the abortion coverage ended up in the policy, it clearly cannot remain.”

Reilly said the Cardinal Newman Society calls on USF president Father Stephen Privett to immediately move to remove abortion from the plan or find a new insurance option.

Reilly also told LifeNews.com that it appears California law does not require USF or other colleges in the state to include abortion in a student health plan.

This isn't the first time the University of San Francisco has promoted abortion.

Previously, USF honored abortion advocate Gavin Newsom, the former San Francisco mayor, as a graduation speaker.

"Very often the argument we get back from these schools, take Gavin Newsom, is that he's done wonderful things. Number one, it's downplaying what these people are doing in advancing the Culture of Death. It is also ignoring the fact that there are thousands and thousands of wonderful, honorable people who could be selected as commencement speakers who would not raise these concerns," Reilly said.

CNS also highlighted pro-abortion professors at USF in a previous letter to Catholic colleges urging them to fire such staff.

ACTION: Contact USF and complain about the pro-abortion health care plan at University of San Francisco, Office of the President, 2130 Fulton St., San Francisco, CA 94117, call (415) 422-6762, or email president@usfca.edu. Find more contacts at http://www.usfca.edu/president/contact.html.

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