It's a health issue

Tamara Tsoutsouris, right, feeding her
7-week-old yesterday outside ABC
headquarters as part of a protest
over remarks by Barbara Walters.

'Lactivists' Taking Their Cause, and Their Babies, to the Streets

By AMY HARMON
Published: June 7, 2005

The calls for a "nurse-in" began on the Internet mere moments after Barbara Walters uttered a negative remark about public breast-feeding on her ABC talk show, "The View."


The protest, inspired by similar events organized by a growing group of unlikely activists nationwide in the last year, brought about 200 women to ABC's headquarters yesterday. They stood nursing their babies in the unmistakably public venue of Columbus Avenue and West 67th Street. They held signs reading, "Shame on View," and "Babies are born to be breastfed." Ms. Walters, who remarked a few weeks ago on the show that the sight of a woman breast-feeding on an airplane next to her had made her uncomfortable, said through a spokesman that "it was a particular circumstance and we are surprised that it warrants a protest."


But the rally at ABC is only the most visible example of a recent wave of "lactivism." Prodded by mothers who say they are tired of being asked to adjourn to the bathroom while nursing in a public space, six states have recently passed laws giving a woman the right to breast-feed wherever she "is otherwise authorized to be."


An Ohio bill saying a woman is "entitled to breast-feed her baby in any place of public accommodation" passed last month over the objection of one representative who wanted to exempt businesses from liability for accidents caused by "spillage."


"I really don't know any women who 'spill,' " said Lisa Wilson, the mother of a 4-month-old in Fairview Park, Ohio, who helped organize a nurse-in at a local deli to support the bill

.


So kids are supposed to starve, or are people just to leave that to their nannies, like Walters did with her child rearing?

Americans can be really, really fucked up about nature. They move into the wilderness and are shocked that bears root through the garbage. Human milk is for human babies (and very lucky daddies). This is natural. So what if some guy gets a stiffie or you have to see some woman's breast. Big deal. The goal should be to feed children with what nature decided they should have, milk from their mother. What? Breasts are made for sucking.

Only in a society as sex schizophrenic as this one would be discomforted by a child being fed by their mother naturally.

Besides, in New York, female toplessness is completely legal. So if a kid needs to be fed, the mother should feed the child. It's not a sex act. More women should do it for health reasons. Not everyone can, but isn't it clear that more women would if this was embraced and not stigmatized.

posted by Steve @ 8:17:00 PM