I was just recently oriented to my new health insurance benefits by the human resources folks at Notre Dame, and oral contraception is not covered by the prescription drug plan:

Oral Contraceptives: Drug treatment for correction of existing pathologies of the reproductive system only. To establish medical necessity, physician must fax a letter of medical necessity to Benefit Associate at 574-631-6790. Authorizations will be input into Medcos system and are good for 12 months.No payment will made for expenses incurred: For oral contraceptive or contraceptive devices, except when specifically requested by a physician based on medical necessity and for purposes other than contraception. Contraceptive implants, such as Norplant, are not considered Covered Prescription Drugs.

This is, perhaps, not surprising given the Church's teaching and the Catholic identity of the Univerisity and should probably give those flustered by Obama's visit some cause for relief that all is not lost at America's flagship Catholic Univerisity. However, the University's stand on contraception is not without contradiction.One would hope that this putative commitment to life would mean that the University is in the vanguard of institutions seeking to provide support for childbearing and rearing. Unfortunately, the University does not offer paid maternity/paternity leave:

The Family and Medical Leave Act provides for unpaid leave time. The University requires employees to use available paid sick time, personal days and vacation days first for their own serious health condition, to the extent available, before the leave becomes unpaid.

By way of comparison, bastions of secularism, Yale, Princeton, and University of Chicago, all offer paid maternity/parternity leave, even to graduate students! Furthermore, I have yet to find any child care services at the University for children under the age of two, and for children over two, there is, at least,sliding-scale (based on household income) childcare available.It is contradictions like these that undermine the practicability of the Church's teachings.UPDATE: John McGreevy alerted me to the recently developed maternity leave policy for graduate students, which does offer 6 weeks of paid leave: http://ame.nd.edu/graduate/ghb09-10/medleave.html