This happened in Hamilton Ontario, I guess.  It's odd, this story about this
happening in swimming pools, where you can see women who are practically
naked, and nobody complains.

Jack Newman, MD, FRCPC

$6,000 awarded nursing mom
Linda Jacobs
The Hamilton Spectator

A breastfeeding mother ordered to leave a city swimming pool two years ago
has won a $6,000 settlement from the city. "But it was never about the
money," said Shannon Wray.

As well as the cash settlement, Wray's lawyer Joan MacDonald negotiated a
new city policy on breastfeeding at city-run recreation centres.

Wray filed a discrimination suit with the Ontario Human Rights Commission
after staff at Huntington Park Recreation Centre ordered her out of the
pool,
telling her "no food or drink is allowed in the pool."

Wray has said she was sitting in the hot pool when her nine-month-old
daughter Chyenne got hungry.

She slipped her bathing suit strap down and began to nurse the child. She
believes staff acted after other swimmers complained.

"Someone told me (Wednesday night) that I was dragging society into the
future," Wray said yesterday. "But I think I'm just bringing it back to
basics. I
just did what is normal and natural and what women have been doing since the
beginning of time."

The city policy tries to walk a fine line between the rights of mothers and
traditional sensitivities against public breastfeeding.

While praising the health benefits of breastfeeding, the policy notes the
rec department tries to provide "a comfortable and enjoyable environment"
for all members of the public.

The city has agreed to set aside deck chairs for the use of nursing mothers.
However, the final sentence is a clear victory for nursing moms.

"Staff will not request breastfeeding mothers to move to a specific area
within or outside the pool area," the policy states.

In other words, deck chairs will be provided, but mothers who wish to nurse
elsewhere won't be asked to move.

MacDonald is optimistic people will gradually get used to mothers nursing in
public as they do in many other countries.

"The bottom line is get over it. This is about breasts as they are in
reality. It isn't about Penthouse," said MacDonald, the longtime chair of
the mayor's committee on the status of women.

As society becomes more health conscious and a younger generation is less
prudish about "something pretty natural," public breastfeeding will become
accepted, she predicted. MacDonald said there's already more widespread
acceptance than some people believe.

"When I was in law school in the 1980s, women routinely breastfed in the
classroom," she said. She also saw several female lawyers nurse their babies
at a recent law conference in Montreal.

"This is just the reality of women's lives. Babies just don't feed on
schedule even if we keep trying to make them. It isn't just a victory for
women. It's a victory for children."

MacDonald acknowledged that in her grandmother's era, no woman would have
dared to nurse in public, "but times have changed."

MacDonald felt so strongly about the issue that she waived most of her fee
for the legal fight. She noted that Wray had taken "a lot of guff" in the
form of juvenile remarks.

"Really it's about choice. If you don't wish to breastfeed in public, you
don't have to. And if you don't want to look at it, then just don't look at
it. But Shannon has done all women a service by helping to change
attitudes."

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