Pamela wrote: "...whether the existing human rights documents reflect what
I see as the infant's biological right to be breastfed, rather than the
mother's
right to choose *not* to breastfeed. Would you have any response to this
similar issue?"

This is an extremely difficult issue and I'm afraid I don't have an answer.
I struggle with the question repeatedly. On the one hand, in my mind, we
clearly have biologically based needs: how can the meeting of them not be
considered human rights of the baby and child? At the same time, the bodies
of women, over and over again throughout history and across the globe, have
been the property of anyone but the women themselves. Given all we know
about power and oppression, how can we not respect the right of a woman to
exercise autonomy over her physical being? And on top of all this, we know
that women, under no circumstances, make childcare decisions (or any
decisions) in a vacuum. Our options are realistically constrained by a
multitude of factors so that it is impossible to say in any particular case
how a woman would have exercised her rights over her body had she
understood and been fully supported in meeting the biologically based needs
of her child.

It doesn't get much more complicated than this.

(A reminder that I post to LACTNET in my non-LLL roles.)

Cynthia

Cynthia Good Mojab, MS Clinical Psychology
(Breastfeeding mother, advocate, independent [cross-cultural] researcher
and author; LLL Leader and Research Associate in the LLLI Publications
Department; and former psychotherapist currently busy nurturing her own
little one.)
Ammawell
Email: [log in to unmask]
Web site: http://members.home.net/ammawell

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