>For Alicia,
        In Texas, we did a letter-writing campaign, organized by La Leche
League locally, to all our appropriate representatives to the state
legislature, as well as to the sponsors of the bill and the members of the
committee that was sitting on it.  We used form letters, and in some cases
provided already-addressed envelopes, so that all people had to do was sign
them and put on a stamp.  I handed them out in my "Women and Culture" class
and had more than 60 students send letters.  League meetings would also be a
good place to do this, though you may need permission from LLL headquarters
first.  Can't imagine they would mind.  This really began in response to
word from the committee members that most of their mail was critical of bf
in public.  We heard that that mail came from a conservative Christian group
that had a letter-writing campaign to defeat the bill because it was
"disgusting and immoral" for women to expose their breasts in public.  I
haven't heard of any more action on the bill in Texas, and fear it will
never come up for a vote before the end of the session.  I truly don't
understand the "Christian" opposition to breastfeeding in Texas, and have
often thought about paying someone to make me some bumper stickers that said
JESUS WAS BREASTFED or even JESUS WAS BREASTFED FOR MORE THAN TWO YEARS.
Think they would sell?

  The wording change from "infant" to "child" is critical, I would think, as
most people mean "birth to 12 months" when they think of infant.  I can just
see having to tell my almost 4 year old to tell the nice policeman that he
is really only 11 months old, just large and precocious for his age!
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Katherine A. Dettwyler                                email:
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Anthropology Department                               phone: (409) 845-5256
Texas A&M University                                    fax: (409) 845-4070
College Station, TX  77843-4352