Okay, so that's a slightly misleading headline (shocking, I know!). Breastfeeding has never been illegal here, or really anywhere. But until and unless individual states pass laws specifically exempting them, breastfeeding mothers have always been vulnerable to prosection under laws against obscenity and "lewd behavior." The Massachusetts law, signed in January, went into effect last week and its sponsors hope it will not only protect individual mothers, but nurture a more pro-breastfeeding culture.
From the Boston Globe article:
Up till now, women who breastfed their babies in public could have
been prosecuted for indecent exposure or lewd conduct. If convicted,
they could even have been forced to register as sex offenders,
proponents of the bill said.
The new law authorizes breastfeeding in public places and makes it clear it is not illegal.
"This law is a long time in coming. The idea behind this law is to
make sure that women who want to breastfeed their children aren't
prevented from doing that. And the message should go out that security
guards and storekeepers and even police officers don't have the right
to prevent a woman from breastfeeding her child," said Representative
David Linsky, a Natick Democrat who backed the bill.
This isn't the first state law to specificially exempt nursing moms from anti-obscenity laws -- 40 other states have passed similar legislation, most in the past decade and a half -- and at this point it's more interesting to see which states do not provide such protection: Idaho, Michigan, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia. Indications are that most of them will follow suit. Perhaps most illustrative, though, is the lingering objection to such laws, as seen in the fact that it took eight years of sponsors putting up the Massachusetts bill before it was finally signed into law, and as currently seen in the comments section following the Globe article online. While many were very positive ("at last!" "yay!" "this is a great day"), a surprising number expressed outrage that women can now nurse in public without fear of harrassment or even arrest.
A sampling:
"I am a mother of two and i find it disgusting when a woman breastfeeds
in public. People take this to an extreme and are practically nude! I
do not want my boys to have to see this."
"Show a little respect for those of us who don't want to be subjected to
this wonderful bonding experience. I think that breast feeding should
be done in private. Nothing is the world is more awkward than running
into a woman breast feeding a child. I most certainly do not want to have to explain to my young children
why this person is exposing her private parts in public. My parents
raised all of us on bottles and we turned out just fine. If you made
the choice to go "natural" that so be it, but do not cram your choice
down our throats."
"And really...would it be that hard to just use a bottle when you are out in public? I mean really??"
Leaving aside the extreme ignorance of how breastfeeding works -- as if nursing mothers should all want to bottle feed as well? -- it's fascinating to me how many of the commenters are worried about their small children being exposed to breastfeeding. Um, I get it that most of those objections come from parents who themselves used bottles, but why do they assume their children would share their discomfort -- at least, until they teach it to them, as they so obviously will. Babble readers, what do you think? Is it damaging for a child to see another child nursing with its mother? If so, why? And if not, what's the best come-back you can think of to some parent who gives you the stink-eye while breastfeeding in the same vicinity as their children?
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