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Home / New Zealand

<i>Kerre Woodham:</i> Bottle feeding us laws

By Kerre McIvor,
4 Aug, 2007 05:00 PM2 mins to read

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Opinion by Kerre McIvorLearn more

KEY POINTS:

Who would have thought that that monument to political correctness - Te Papa - would have been so crass as to ask a breastfeeding woman to leave its public library?

Rotorua MP Steve Chadwick produced several examples of this sort of antediluvian behaviour in support of her bill
that demands an end to discrimination of feeding mothers.

I do wish she'd go away and take her private member's bill with her. Surely she's got plenty to do in Rotorua right now and there are greater concerns for children in this country than the right for their mothers to breastfeed them when and where they like.

For most people, it's not a problem. Most of us have managed to feed our children without startling the populace and frightening the horses.

Oh, I heard a few horror stories - one of a woman who hitched up her entire dress and sat on a park bench feeding her child all but naked from the boobs down, and I've heard the story of the woman dipping her breast into the café sugar bowl so many times I'm wondering if it's an urban myth.

There are people who are uncomfortable with seeing a mother breastfeeding - but quite frankly, they're the odd ones. In a society of competing rights, I'm afraid the right of a baby to be fed in the most natural way possible trumps the right of a crusty old coot to eat his date scone in peace. But we don't need legislation for heaven's sake.

We just need the prudes to turn their heads and go to their happy place and mothers to be a little less militant.

Please, no more pointless, senseless laws. I don't think I can take another one.

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