We've been working on a bit of breastfeeding legislation in our state to
protect women from the public indencency laws.  The bill would add
language to the indencency statutes that would protect breastfeeding
women and would include provisions for penalties for establishments that
hassled breastfeeding women.  Unfortunately the bill had to pass through
the state judiciary committee first and the bill hasn't been quite the
same since.  The language refering to penalties has been removed and
added has been the phrase "breastfeeding a child under 3 years of age."
The end result is that women breastfeeding a child 3 years old or older
is specifically *not* protected, but those breastfeeding a child under 3
are (in fact, I think that to specifically exclude the over 3 nursers is
to equate them with the "night walkers," "street walkers" and "railers
and brawlers" that this portion of the statutes addresses).  With no
penalties, of course we're wondering what incentive there is to follow
the law.

Since our group is the one that got this ball rolling in our state,
we're looking for input in general, and specifically from those who have
worked on legislation and might have some suggestions for which path to
take with this bill.

:-\
--
Beth Johnson
Perinatal Educator, Doula
Springfield, MA USA

"Breastmilk: anything else is less."

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