In an action that is being hailed by women's and health groups as an important symbolic
victory, the Florida Legislature has enacted what is apparently the first state
measure guaranteeing women the right to breast-feed their children in public. By
a unanimous vote, the Florida Senate on Tuesday passed a bill that amends the
state's statutes on indecent exposure, lewd and lascivious behavior and
obscenity to exempt and protect nursing mothers from arrest or harassment by
law-enforcement or private security officials.
The bill also endorses breast-feeding as the preferred method of
nurturing an infant and condemns "the vicious cycle of embarrassment and
ignorance" and "archaic and outdated moral taboos" surrounding
the practice. The measure has been praised by organizations like La Leche
League, a breast-feeding advocacy group, which describes it as the first
instance in the nation of a state's codifying support for breast-feeding. Ms. Baldwin,
a Miami lawyer who is a member of the legal advisory council of La Leche League,
said that she hoped other states would follow Florida's lead and added that an
ordinance supporting breast-feeding was already in place in Kansas City, Mo.
In West Palm Beach, a woman
told of being ordered to leave a movie theater when she began to breast-feed
her child and in Jacksonville, it emerged, some public libraries had posted
signs prohibiting mothers from nursing. The bill states that "a mother may
breast-feed her baby in any location, public or private" that she has a
right to be "irrespective of whether or not the nipple of the mother's
breast is covered during or incidental to the breast-feeding." In debate
on the floor of the House of Representatives, some legislators expressed
concern that Mr. de Grandy's bill might grant legal protection to women to
appear topless in public, either on beaches or in nude dance clubs. Nevertheless,
the House approved the bill, 107 to 8, last month. The bill, she added, not
only "gives mothers more security," but also helps "raise
awareness through all levels of society."
"In Cuban culture, and in Europe, this is normal behavior,
and women are encouraged to nurse their children," Mr. de Grandy, who was
born in Cuba and has also lived in Spain said.
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