To all (including the lurking Ms. Robin?):

The following is a copy of the response I received today to the letter I
mailed Peggy Robin and posted to Lactnet commenting on BWG.  (For the
record, I don't think posting this communication is an ethical
infringement as the letter is largely a reiteration of the thesis of her
publicly published book.)

<snip addresses>
Dear Ms. Piercy:

     Despite the statement in your letter that you do not believe
bottlefeeding women should feel guilty, it seems clear to me by some of
the other views expressed in your letter, that you do.  If you agree with
your quotation from Norma Jean Baumgarner [sic] that the inability to
breastfeed is an "extremely rare problem" and that the failure to breast-
feed [sic; quote speaks to *inability* not failure] is cause for
"disappointment and regret," then it follows that the woman who
bottlefeeds out of preference, not necessity, is doing a disservice to
her baby, in your eyes.  The Baumgarner [sic] quotation goes on to say
explicitly that parents who "voluntarily create a way of life that is not
as good for our children as it should be" *should* experience guilt
feelings, and "rightly so."  So Baumgarner [sic] (and I assume you agree)
does believe that the vast majority of bottlefeeding women are doing
something that they could have avoided doing, if only they had the
dedication to their babies that breastfeeding women have.

     Of course you are perfectly free to disagree with my
interpretation--but I don't find in your letter any proof that I've
misjudged your attitude: It's cultist all the way.

     Thanks for taking the time to write.

     Sincerely, Peggy Robin


I guess I'm *not* really free to disagree if doing so gets me labelled a
cultist automatically!  Mostly I was disappointed that she side-stepped
the whole issue of the appropriateness of bad-mouthing one group of
people to bolster the feelings of superiority of another group of people.
I also admit to surprise that in the context of her letter she focusses
on the desirablilty of supporting the decision to bottlefeed "out of
preference"--something she asserts the majority of bottlefeeding women are
doing (and thus, the majority of all women, sadly enough)--after she went
to a lot of trouble in her book to paint pictures of starving babies and
mothers with bloodied nipples reluctantly rejecting martyrdom at the breast.

Just another cult member,

Penny Piercy, LLLL, MOM (Patrick 4/6/93 and baby 9/96)
     from Bloomington, IN
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