Dear JoAnne,
I refuse to acknowledge the intellectual property right of any patent holder
of a human milk component or gene imitation of that component.  I do not
accept the legal grounds for the patenting of life or the genetic manipulation in
order to imitate life.  It is morally repugnant to me and I have to believe it
would be objectional to many other IBCLCs.

Just because the USA has made it legal to patent life and genetically
engineer life does not make it morally or ethically correct.  For example, slavery
was legal in the USA prior to the Emancipation Proclamation. Would someone who
was opposed to slavery prior to the Emancipation, sign a code of ethics
acknowledging the rights of slave holders to their property?  Would we be able to
persuade that person who was opposed to slavery that as long as the person who
opposed slavery did not try to own slaves themselves, they would not be in
violation of the code of ethics?  I think not.

Ownership of human milk components is a form of slavery.   If we acknowledge
the intellectual property rights of these kind of patent holders, we are
accepting the morality that some men and some institutions have the legal right to
own human milk components and/or the genetic blueprints of those components. I
refuse to accept this and I believe that the IBLCE should withdraw this
tenet.  I would hope that those IBCLCs who believe likewise might make their
concerns known to the IBLCE.

Sincerely,
Valerie W. McClain, IBCLC

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