Horrified!! (In Which Your Friendly Neighbourhood Hobbit Goes Off About the Politics of IF)

Hey Humble Readers...

I am sitting here truly stunned this Saturday evening. 

This goes beyond WTF...

I don't talk about politics much here, mostly because I tend to be fairly skeptical about promises and claims made by politicians.  In my opinion, they do and say things that will benefit them in the moment, and then do or say the exact opposite in the next breath. 

But today I encountered a shocking new low.

We, here on the not-so-frozen flatland, are less than one week into a provincial election campaign.  After being in power for longer than I have been alive, the Progressive Conservatives are actually being threatened by a relatively new political party, the Wildrose Party.  I'm not going to go into who I'm planning on voting for, because that's beside the point here. 

On Friday night, a staff member from a Progressive Conservative office in the southern part of the province, in response to Danielle Smith (the Wildrose Party leader, who would be Premier if her party is elected) making statements about tax breaks for families with school age children, tweeted the following...

“If @elect Danielle likes young and growing families so much, why doesn’t she have children of her own? #wrp family pack = insincere #abvote"

I was stunned when I read that.  In what world is a comment like that appropriate?  Would this question even have been asked had the leader of the Wildrose party been a man?  And of course, the IFer in me cringed... we don't know the road that Smith has walked. 

And then I learned something more...

Smith and her husband have struggled with IF for more than five years.  From what I've read tonight, it looks like they have moved away from treatments.  (Her husband has a son from a previous relationship.)

Since when is it anyone's business about why or why not someone has kids?  What does it have to do with her ability to legislate policies involving children and families? 

There is a little voice of realism in the back of my mind that is not really all that shocked that someone could be so incredibly stupid and insensitive, but it can't seem to drown out the anger and indignation I feel on Ms. Smith's behalf. 

Thankfully, the PC staffer who was responsible for the tweet resigned/was fired today. 

Still, it makes me sick to know that a woman who has gone through the agony of IF has had her lack of children thrown in her face, all because she dares to run for public office. 

(This article contains a bit more info)