Professor at Jesuit University Resigns to Protest Dropped Abortion Coverage

Professor at Jesuit University Resigns to Protest Dropped Abortion Coverage

An associate professor of law at Santa Clara University, a Jesuit institution, resigned because he did not like the university’s decision to eliminate insurance coverage of elective abortion. 

Stephen F. Diamond, who taught at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, emailed the center’s director, Kirk O. Hanson, that the center was “playing a role that was essentially rolling out the policy.”

In light, then, of my support of a woman’s right to choose and my support and belief in shared governance and in light of the role the Markkula Center is playing in imposing this decision on our community, I no longer believe my views of what is considered ethical and those of the center are in agreement and thus I am tendering my resignation as an ethics scholar at the center.

Hanson joined two other faculty members to organize two forums in the last week so that faculty and staff could debate the decision handed down by the university’s president, the Rev. Michael E. Engh. Critics called the decision a unilateral one.

Hanson released a statement that expressed regret at Diamond’s departure but also stated, “I believe the two meetings I co-hosted this week allowed all faculty and staff to register their opposition and might lead to a better way to handle such decisions in the future.”

Diamond has some strong biases; last May, he tried to vilify Ted Cruz by comparing him to the left’s favorite all-time villain, Joe McCarthy, tweeting, “Am I the only one who thinks Ted Cruz looks like the long lost grandson of old Joe?”

Photo credit: Ed Bierman/Wikipedia

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