In a message dated 98-01-27 00:33:30 EST, you write:

<< <<I am curious. If mothers (by law in Texas and other states) have a right
to
 breastfeed anywhere they have a legal right to be, are we breaking the law
 by prohibiting breastfeeding babies at breastfeeding conferences?>>
  >>


Most of the laws say something along the lines of:  anywhere the mother has a
legal right to be, she may breastfeed her baby.  According to my dh (who has
been lawyering, for free, for a couple of moms here who have been ordered to
wean)
"no specific right is attached to the baby in this statute."   The implication
is that there *are* some places the baby does not have the legal right to be.
In other words, the first set of circumstances (mom having baby there legally)
has not been met in this situation, because mom was prohibited from having
baby there in the first place.  Recently a (female) judge ruled that
babies/children could be excluded from nighttime movie showings (R rated, even
if we are talking about a two month old nursling), as the adults had an
expectation of unencumbered viewing (paraphrasing here).  So there are no
statutes or precedents setting up a right of mother-baby togetherness; and in
fact some that allow such exclusions.  IMNSHO, of course, there should
be--give me a couple years to work on our pro-family representative here!  To
summarize:   It is unlikely that a case could be made that it is illegal to
prohibit breastfeeding babies from attending anything.  After all, the opinion
would probably go, if being with baby is important to mom, she can choose not
to attend baby-free functions.

Once again, I am wishing fervently that we lived in one of the many many
countries where a baby attached to mom is given no thought at all--at dances,
in the fields, in meetings, at funerals, at births--because, after all, *of
course* babies will be where women are!  The increasing socio-political
animosity/separation encouraged by our industrialized, market value culture
makes all this seem oppressive to women.

Grrrrr.

Joy Berry-Parks               "Childhood decides."  --Jean Paul Sartre
Attachment Parenting Group of AR
LLLL, Little Rock, AR
Evolutionary Anthropology apprentice