Maybe we should ask each Scripps-Howard paper that printed the odious Betsy
Hart's remarks on breastfeeding in public to public the following:

From the Sacramento Bee:

         Common sense at odds with 'breastaphobia'


          By Ariana Huffington
          (Published July 6, 1997)

                 ith barely a peep, California has passed a bill guaranteeing a
                 woman's right to breast-feed in public places. The vote was
                 28-5 in the state Senate and 61-9 in the Assembly.

          Wouldn't you like to meet those 14 legislators who have a problem with
          shameless strumpets caught breast-feeding their infants?

          No, they are not all male. They are, unfortunately, all Republican.
          And, yes, they are all confused.

          How else to explain the comments of Assemblywoman Lynne Leach? This
          guardian of the commonweal objects to breast-feeding in public places,
          "especially where children are present." Oh, dear. And I thought that
          it was breast-feeding without children present that was inappropriate
          in public.

          "I'm fearful," the Leach continued, "this will bring tiny babies into
          circumstances where they don't belong." What sort of circumstances?
          "Baseball games."

          In Greece, where I hail from, the idea of passing a law protecting
          women's right to breast-feed their babies in public would be
          laughable. I breast-fed my two daughters until they were 2 years old.
          I could have given my babies lunch under the pillars of the Parthenon,
          and nobody, save American tourists, would have batted an eye.

          But here, in this nation founded by English Puritans, public
          breast-feeding is a matter of controversy. Women have been asked to
          leave stores, museums, restaurants, health clubs--even the women-only
          sections of gyms--because they were brazen enough to feed their hungry
          babies.

          So far, 10 states--including New York, Illinois, Utah and Nevada--have
          passed laws clarifying that breast-feeding in public does not
          constitute indecent exposure, and therefore is not criminal behavior.
          The essence of these laws is precisely that babies belong wherever
          their moms are and can be appropriately fed on whatever public spots
          they occupy.

          At a time when the bonds between mothers and their children are so
          frayed that newborns are abandoned in the trash and thousands of
          children are abused by their own mothers, it takes a loopy society to
          object to this public manifestation of private bonding.

          Yet, loopiness has broken out around the land. It even hit that
          bastion of family friendliness, Wal-Mart, as Dana Derungs found out.
          "It was my first excursion into the outside world with my 6-week-old
          baby," she told me from her home in Lebanon, Ohio. "He had been a
          preemie, so I got real nervous when he started crying his head off. I
          found the most discreet place to breast-feed him--outside the women's
          dressing room."

          It was not to be. A Wal-Mart employee--a middle-aged woman to
          boot--told her she could only feed her baby there if she used a
          bottle. The problem was that Derungs had a cart full of merchandise, a
          screaming, hungry baby, a full, ready breast and no bottle. In fact,
          she had never given her baby a bottle--a practice recommended by all
          pediatricians not in the exclusive pay of baby-formula companies, at
          least for the first three months of an infant's life.

          Dana Derungs left the store with her crying baby and without her
          merchandise, but fortunately for breast-feeding moms everywhere, she
          took up their call. Joining forces with other moms, she founded
          BMAD--Breast-Feeding Moms Against Discrimination. And she filed a
          complaint with the Civil Rights Commission of Ohio.

          In the meantime, a petition is circulating around the state to get a
          law passed in Ohio similar to the bill the governor is about to sign
          in California. "As well as being a healthy choice for the mother and
          the baby," said Assemblyman Antonio Villaraigosa, who introduced the
          bill, "it's good for the rest of us to witness this bond between
          mother and child. It reminds everyone that we all have a
          responsibility for nourishing our children."

          It also reminds everyone that we have a responsibility for nourishing
          the minds of blue-nosed breastaphobes across the land.