Women Organize Against HHS Mandate

What can we do?

That is the question faith-filled women ask me whenever we discuss the HHS Mandate. What can we, out here in the far-flung reaches of this great country, do to stop this attack against our faith?

Vote. I tell them.

Pray. I say.

Talk to your friends. Write your congresspeople. Send a letter to the editor.

All good things, to be sure. All very American things.

But what can we, as women do about this? After all, it’s our lives and our bodies that are being used as an excuse for destroying our own religious freedom. Yet no one anywhere has asked us if we’d rather have a government-run Church or a free one. Not one person has inquired if we feel that free birth control for employees of Church institutions is worth having the government either take control of or shut down so many hospitals, universities and social welfare agencies.

Has anyone — any one at all — stopped to think how many women might die from cancer, car wrecks, and heart attacks if these hospitals are no longer there to save them?

What will happen to the woman who is choking to death and needs help now when the nearest hospital is closed down? Where will immigrant women go for help with learning English? How many battered women will have to stay with their batterer because the shelter has been closed?

How much are we willing to throw away, how many lives will we sacrifice, in order to allow the government to force the Church to kiss Caesar’s ring?

A new group, Women Speak for Themselves, has formed. It gives women a voice in their own lives that the so-called “women’s health” folks have taken away from them. Instead of speaking for women, this group lets women … Speak for Themselves.

A September 23 CNA article about Women Speak for Themselves reads in part:

Washington D.C., Sep 23, 2012 / 05:56 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Thousands of women across the country are leading grassroots efforts to make their voices heard in opposition to the federal contraception and sterilization mandate.

The Women Speak for Themselves movement is driven by “things that women are deciding to do on their own,” said Meg McDonnell, who has been assisting the group from early in its existence.

McDonnell told CNA on Sept. 20 that the movement has received “hundreds of e-mails” about women’s efforts to defend religious freedom, including prayer campaigns, local rallies, blog posts, discussions with elected representatives, voter registration drives, billboards and letters to the editor. (Read more here.)

I encourage my sisters in Christ, both Catholic and non-Catholic to visit the Women Speak for Themselves website and sign the on-line letter to President Obama against the HHS Mandate.

While you’re there, take a look at the other resources the site offers and consider “liking” it for your Facebook page. I’m going to.