In a Feb. 23 article for the Hartford Courant, she called the U.S. bishops out of touch and highlighted what she called the “vast disconnect between Catholic teaching and the reality of our lives.”
Casey also cited statistics – recently debunked by Washington Post contributor Glenn Kessler – which claim that 98 percent of Catholic women have used artificial contraception.
She then referenced personal experiences and the opinions of her Catholic acquaintances who use birth control as support for the mandate.
“Like me, many would consider themselves irresponsible mothers if they did not tell their children to ignore the church's teaching on contraception.”
If women do not “speak up” and support of the HHS mandate, Casey said, “scores of male commentators will get away with the pretense that they are speaking for us.”
Casey said that women, who are the “authorities on the importance of birth control to our health and freedom” know that “pregnancy is far more than a nine-month inconvenience.”
She also likened women who support the mandate to Galileo, saying that the Church has essentially forced women to whisper their support for something they were forced to renounce just as the astronomer did his scientific findings.
But Cathy Cleaver Ruse, senior fellow of Legal Studies for the Family Research Council, criticized Casey's “voice-of-the-oppressed” argument.
She pointed out that “the Church can only propose the truth of its beliefs” but not force anyone to accept them, as Casey suggests.
Ruse observed to CNA on Feb. 23 that within her circle of friends, she could name dozens of women who do not use contraception and “are not in the least bitter about it.”
Instead, women who refuse to contracept “do so because of love,” she emphasized.
(Story continues below)
Subscribe to our daily newsletter
This “is God's law, given not to oppress but to guide us to a more authentic freedom...we live this teaching out of love for Him and his Church.”
Other recent opposition to the mandate includes a list of over 60 prominent women professionals – compiled by National Review Online editor Kathryn Jean Lopez – who condemned the federal rule.
A Feb. 17 open letter telling President Obama, Kathleen Sebelius and members of Congress, “Don't claim to speak for all women,” has already received 2,300 signatures from women across the nation.
Helen M. Alvaré, associate professor of law at George Mason University School of Law, and Kim Daniels, former counsel to the Thomas More Law Center, initiated the letter in response to House Minority leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other supporters of the mandate who have repeatedly suggested that few if any women in the U.S. oppose it.
During a Feb. 16 Congressional hearing on religious freedom, Allison Garrett, senior vice president at Oklahoma Christian University and Dr. Laura Champion, medical director of Calvin College, both gave testimonies against the mandate.