Women have a right to decide whether or not they breastfeed, and other people have a right not to like it. When women who nurse in public are confronted for it, they aren't getting arrested, but being asked to cover up or relocate. It may be ignorant and offensive (though it would perhaps also be unwise to rule out the possible existence of offensive ways to breastfeed in public) but all it really amounts to is a set of hurt feelings, from which it isn't the government's job to protect people. If it were, the government's first order of business tomorrow morning should be prohibiting comments on the appearance of postpartum women."You can't feed the baby here" is silly, but it's not assault and battery, or even hate speech. Anyone whose nips can handle a child attacking them eight times a day clearly has thick enough skin to come up with a fitting reply and stand up or, more likely, remain seated for her baby's natural right to eat when and where he's hungry.

  RATE THIS NOW!

+ DIGG

+ STUMBLE

+ MY YAHOO

+ GOOGLE

RSS

EMAIL TO A FRIEND

PRINT THIS ARTICLE

Discuss this article (19)

So do the current legislative sessions of Washington and Wisconsin really need to give public breastfeeding the official thumbs up when they've both already passed laws explicating that it isn't indecent? Are there some unclaimed benefits for nursing mothers that could be made available with even more public breastfeeding laws (risking the restrictions other states have tacked onto such laws, like the one North Dakota is considering right now)? Or would breastfeeding moms gain more from laws establishing "baby-friendly" standards to ensure good PR for employers who generously accommodate breastfeeding mothers (another provision in the North Dakota bill)? From the busybody public health perspective, which of those two laws would result in more babies getting more breastmilk? And considering the benefit to public health, why not throw in a tax break for employers who make it easy for working moms to keep nursing? We can get businesses to bankroll more breastfeeding guilt trips for mothers! Everybody wins!

Breastfeeding has made its gains not through the law, but through the sea change brought about by individual women.Breastfeeding proponents must be discriminating in their advocacy of breastfeeding law, opposing unnecessary proposals which deflect congressional attention from truly important breastfeeding issues, and granting careful scrutiny to bills which would potentially regulate those issues and restrict existing freedoms. History shows that breastfeeding has made its greatest gains not through the law, but through the organic social sea change brought about by individual women who nursed their babies and pumped in bathrooms when those things were really weird. It was their work that brought about society's increasing openness to breastfeeding, even to the point of making legislatures willing to rubber stamp public nursing laws and consider more material laws relating to breastfeeding.

A poorly written law can impede the freedom of mothers and babies to nurse, and exacerbate public queasiness and hostility toward breastfeeding. But an actual nursing mother and baby can change the attitudes of those who know them, as actual nursing mothers and babies have been quietly proving for decades. In the meantime, the New York General Assembly will keep toiling to pass its fastidiously wrought "Breastfeeding Mothers' Bill of Rights." This bill will, among other things, explicate that nursing moms are allowed to refuse commercial samples. Until it passes, you'll just be stuck thinking you have to take home those junk bags from the formula company.

For more information, see:
North Dakota public breastfeeding bill with modesty clause
New York Breastfeeding Bill of Rights
Iowa bill requiring pumping accommodations if not disruptive to employers
Washington public breastfeeding bill
Wisconsin public breastfeeding bill