http://www.toledofreepress.com/?id=6406
A 29-year-old woman who was asked to leave PacSun, a fashion accessories
store at Westfield Franklin Park mall, for breast-feeding her 12-month-old son,
Zane, may pursue legal action to resolve the incident, which she said violated
her rights under Ohio Revised Code.
Melanie Flores declined to say whether she will seek monetary damages, but
she did say she is undertaking an effort to enact “Zane's Law,” a proposal she
hopes to help introduce into U.S. Congress requiring retail outlets and other
public entities to include literature informing employees of a mother's right to
breast-feed. The law also would mandate a posting of mothers' breast-feeding
rights alongside current federal, state and OSHA compliance policies such as
equal opportunity employment and the federal minimum wage rate.
To help promote her cause, Flores constructed a Web site at
www.myspace.com/mflo1978, available to myspace.com members. She
equated the public's apparent unfamiliarity with the law to a tree falling in the
forest. If no one is there to hear it, does it really make a sound?
“All the other states also have laws that pertain to breast-feeding and a
woman's right to breast-feed in public, so I would like a national law that
states during orientation, employees are informed of the law and let them
know that what these women are doing is for the good of their child, and
there's nothing wrong with it, and they are protected by the law,” Flores said.
Fritz Byers, Flores' attorney, who specializes in communications law, civil
rights and constitutional rights, said, “There certainly is civil cause for action.”
He said Flores hopes to avoid litigation in convincing PacSun, its parent
company, Pacific Sunwear, and the Westfield Group, which operates the mall,
to implement policies recognizing a mother's right to breast-feed in public.
“Ms. Flores really wants to undertake a resolution that will entail education
and training of store and mall workers so that those individuals understand
what the law provides,” Byers said. “It's clear the people who operate the mall
do so without informing their tenants of what the law is, and that's not
acceptable. It's also clear that Pacific Sunwear operates stores without
informing their employees of what the law is, and that's not acceptable.”
Flores sat down on a bench in the back of the store on Sept. 11 to breast-
feed Zane, who was unsatisfied with the spoon-feeding he received minutes
earlier. Afterward a store employee identified only as “Amy” demanded that
she leave if she chose to resume breast-feeding, according to Flores. Security
arrived, and Flores was escorted to the security office to file an incidence
report.
“I'm obviously upset and crying,” she related. “I'm trying to not look people in
the face because I'm like, ‘What if somebody that is a parent of somebody my
daughter goes to school with sees me? What if somebody who is an
acquaintance sees me? They're probably wondering what I stole from who.'”
Westfield released a statement from the office of Katy Dickey, executive vice
president of communications, which reads, “We are aware of the situation and
it is unfortunate that the customer had a bad experience. We are in contact
with the retailer.
“Westfield Franklin Park has Family Lounges specifically designed for the needs
of mothers with nursing stations, bottle warmers, changing stations and
microwaves. For those mothers who don't need the privacy and comfort of the
family lounges we do have soft seating available and located throughout the
mall.”
A spokesperson for Pacific Sunwear, Tim Borland, director of store operations
at the corporate office in Anaheim, Calif., declined comment.
In an e-mail to Toledo Free Press, Flores stated that the PacSun store
employee told her, ‘“… you can't just go around throwing your breasts out
where ever (sic) you'd like.'”
“I would just like them to know that you need to separate breast-feeding from
lewd sexual acts,” said Flores. “And I think that's the problem here is that a
lot of people think breast-feeding has something to do with lewd sexual acts
being performed in public when it's the exact opposite. It's a mother taking
care of their child.”
Flores said she chooses to breast-feed to help her son develop immunity to
celiac disease, a genetically predisposed, chronic digestive disorder. Yet all
infants and mothers can benefit from breastfeeding, according to Sharla Cook,
a lactation consultant and registered dietician at St. Vincent Mercy Family
Care Center. She cited lower breast-cancer rates in premenopausal women as
well as lower incidents of obesity and diabetes and higher IQs in infants by a
range of seven to 10 points.
“There are huge benefits, and we'd save lots of health care dollars if moms
would breast-feed because the babies wouldn't get sick as often,” Cook
said. “In the formula, there're no antibodies and nothing to help the baby stay
healthy, whereas breast-feeding, the breast milk has a lot of antibodies and
cancer-killing substances. You cannot overfeed a breast-fed baby because
you can't force them to take a breast; you can always force a bottle in their
mouth.”
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