The Struggle in our Home

By Matt:

My wife is really struggling this political season. Like me, she is very passionate about politics. She pays attention. She educates herself. She listens well to other points of view. Like me, she is a registered Republican, but she doesn’t vote a straight ticket and I’d say she is quite a bit more moderate than I am.

But, this year, she is still very torn on how to vote for President. Here is why. My wife is incredibly passionate about reproductive rights for women and families here in South Dakota and across the country. At the same time, she doesn’t like to vote strictly on one issue.

Obviously she is voting NO on Initiated Measure 11 – the South Dakota abortion ban. She knows this is a personal matter that needs to be left up to women and their families. Government can’t know all the unique circumstances that would bring a woman to consider terminiating a pregnancy, and that’s why my wife (and I) believe that this procedure cannot be banned.

Bless my wife’s heart, she had such high hopes for who McCain would select as a VP. In her mind, it would even things out if McCain selected someone like Tom Ridge or Joe Liberman. Not that a VP really has that much pull in things such as these, but she saw it as a safe way to vote Republican. Needless to say, she’s incredibly disappointed in the choice of Palin. As a woman, my wife is excited to have another woman on the ticket, but to have such an anti-abortion rights candidate is not making it any easier on her.

I, on the other hand, am having no problems choosing how I will vote. While I am a supporter of reproductive justice, there are other issues much more important to me.

It’ll be interesting to see how this all unfolds for both my wife and the nation.