Helping parents nurture healthy babies

Can't we Compromise?

by Kate Kahn - 28 October 2009

There's an interesting case study taking place about a woman's right to breastfeed on airlines.  It concerns a woman from New Mexico who was flying from Burlington, VT to New York on a Delta Connections flight operated by Freedom Airlines Inc. According to an article in the Burlington Free Press, "A breast-feeding mother is perfectly acceptable on an aircraft, providing she is feeding the child in a discreet way" says the spokeman for Freedom Airlines.  He goes on to say, "She was asked to use a blanket just to provide a little more discretion, she was given a blanket, and she refused to use it, and that's all I know." 

The woman is suing the airline because she was apparently forced to get off the plane for not covering up while breastfeeding.  She now suffers from anxiety about breastfeeding in public...a right that's mandated in most states.

So here's my thought on this whole thing.  No question in my mind the airline had no right to kick her off the plane for refusing to use the blanket they offered.  That is unacceptable in this day and age. Breastfeeding is not obscene.

But, the flip side of the argument is, would it really have hurt the woman to use the blanket?  I don't think so.  Sometimes, in our quest to stand up for our rights, we can take it too far.  Do we, as women, want the right to breastfeed in public without being made to feel lewd or abscene?  Yes, of course.  But does that mean we have to be able to reveal our breasts or otherwise it doesn't count?  No.

 

Comments

Kendra

5:29 13/11/2009
I\'m with the mother on this one. It wouldn\'t have hurt me to use a blanket, but it would have been really uncomfortable for my baby. She never even liked having blankets on her body (kicked them off, even in her newborn days) so I can\'t imagine putting one over her head! Nor can I think of a single adult who eats under a blanket. Or can\'t avert their eyes if they see something they don\'t like. On top of that, being discreet does not mean you have to use a blanket. Most moms are perfectly capable of nursing without revealing their breasts. When I nurse in public, you really need to get in there and look to see anything, and most of the time people don\'t even know what\'s going on. Last time I was on a plane, the woman next to me asked if she could hold my daughter. She never even realized she was eating. Having done it, I do know when another mom is breastfeeding, but I can\'t think of a single time before I breastfed that I saw a mom nursing in public. It can\'t be that in 26 years I never saw someone breastfeed, so they must have been discreet about it. Then, you have the questions of what constitutes discretion, and why it matters. To me, it\'s blatantly obvious that a mom with a blanket over her whole baby and most of her body is breastfeeding. Not so much if the baby is simply latched on--she could just be cradling her baby. So is it the breasts or the breastfeeding that\'s scowled at? It can\'t be the breasts because I\'ve never heard of a woman being kicked off a plane for too low cut of a shirt, and you see way more boobage in that case than in the case of your everyday nursing mother. So it must be the breastfeeding that\'s offensive. So then, wouldn\'t it be more offensive to have a big red flag that screams, "Hey! Breastfeeding here!"? And why do we feel breastfeeding needs to be discreet? It\'s not a sexual act, it\'s just the biological design for feeding our babies. I don\'t get what\'s interesting, much less offensive or obscene about that. It\'s just normal. For what it\'s worth, I\'ve never seen a woman just lift her shirt and go at it, but if she did, I wouldn\'t think anything differently than if I saw a mom nursing discreetly (with or without a blanket) or bottle feeding her baby. Just a mom feeding her baby in all cases. I thought that\'s what was being argued here?

Erin

11:31 18/11/2009
I doubt this woman was "revealing her breasts." Most women do nurse discreetly and all you might see is a thin strip of skin. Many babies refuse to be covered with a blanket. They will yank it off or scream and cry. Perhaps her baby is one of these, and she knew it would cause a bigger disruption when the baby cried so everyone on the plane was disturbed rather than the few people sitting near her? Why must you assume that she was trying to "take it too far?" Personally, I wouldn\'t have covered up w/ a blanket because there\'d be nothing to cover. It looks like my child is sleeping when I nurse. And I don\'t think I\'d want to put an airline blanket near my baby\'s face since airplanes are such germy places!

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