September 3rd, 2009
Breastfeeding in Public Gets Shotty Reporting
Yesterday a Lincoln Square mother was harassed by a woman for breastfeeding her son in public.
Bad, right? Yes. But what makes it worse? When the female reporter on the story, Suzanne Le Mignot, doesn’t know enough about Illinois law to properly report on the subject.
From the story:
Trost says she always nurses her 7-month-old son discreetly in Lincoln Square. That’s why she says she was stunned when a woman recently threatened her by saying:
“‘I’m going to call the police, and then I said, ‘please call the police,’” Trost said. “She said, ‘what you’re doing is indecent, there are children here.’ And I said, ‘I’m just feeding my baby.’”
Nursing a child in public is not against the law in Illinois. Trost says she’s telling her story to reinforce that fact.
DEAR Ms. Le Mignot – nursing in public is not just “not against the law in Illinois,” it is, flat out PROTECTED by law. In fact, Illinois SB 3211 provided one of the country’s strictest breastfeding protection laws in that it includes an actual enforcement provision, allowing a woman to sue any business who tried to deny her this right.
This is like saying “being handicapped is not against the law in Illinois.” Hello? We have RIGHTS and PROTECTIONS. That goes far beyond “not against the law.”
Please send your letters of disapproval to CBS 2 News regarding Ms. Le Mignot’s underwhelming reporting capabilities. I want them to update the story to include the actual laws, and not their poorly researched version.
Here’s the one I wrote:
Dear Susanne,
Regarding this morning’s story about the breastfeeding incident in Lincoln Square, I request that you get your facts straight.
Breastfeeding in public is not only “not illegal” in the state of Illinois, but it is PROTECTED BY LAW. In 2004, SB 3211 established “The Right to Breastfeed” act, which includes tough legislation protecting a woman’s right to nurse anywhere she is authorized to be, and includes an enforcement provision allowing her to sue for damages if a business owner tried to stop her from breastfeeding in their establishment.
http://www.illinois.gov/PressReleases/ShowPressRelease.cfm?SubjectID=1&RecNum=3291
Breastfeeding is a hugely important and highly controversial topic, and it is your job as a reporter to dispel the confusion and set forth the facts when reporting on a story like this.
Section 10: Breastfeeding Location: A mother may breastfeed her baby in any location, public or private, where the mother is otherwise authorized to be, irrespective of whether the nipple of the mother’s breast is uncovered during or incidental to the breastfeeding;
Section 15. Private right of action. A woman who has been denied the right to breastfeed by the owner or manager of a public or private location, other than a private residence or place of worship, may bring an action to enjoin future denials of the right to breastfeed. If the woman prevails in her suit, she shall be awarded reasonable attorney’s fees and reasonable expenses of litigation.
Please update your language to reflect the protections that women are granted, rather than just implying that what they are doing isn’t technically “illegal.”
A Concerned Illinoisan
Now, somebody tell me how I can get ahold of Lauren Trost because I will nurse in Lincoln Square with her any day of the week. I swear I know this woman, I just cannot place her. Maybe we were in a mom’s group together at some point. She looks pretty rock-n-roll, and we’re around the same age, so I bet she’s probably a friend of a friend.
I Predict a Riot!
UPDATE TO THIS STORY: Well, my friends, letter writing and lactivism works! Check it out! I smell progress!
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It annoys the heck out of me that “a place of worship” is exempt from the law. Many of them do not provide a place to breastfeed. Of those that do, some of them provide a place to breastfeed that is in an entirely different section of the building, or even in another building, thus preventing the woman from participating in the service, or even witnessing it. This is a hot-button for me, as I take very seriously my obligation to attend Mass, and to raise my children in my faith, but I’m treated (often) as if I shouldn’t even be in the church until my kids are old enough to sit perfectly still for over an hour. I don’t know how I’m expected to raise children in the church if they aren’t physically welcome in the damn church building. Anyway, sorry. That’s my aside for the day.
I’d love to say this is one of the reasons I don’t go to church, but I’m an atheist and I wouldn’t be there anyway. But what I do NOT understand is why people don’t realize that Jesus was BREASTFED! If it’s good enough for The Son, why isn’t it good enough for everybody else?
Yes Jesus was breastfed but are we sure that Mary didn’t have a hooter hider to protect the public from the shameful sight of her lactating breast? Hee, sorry I couldn’t resist. Now that I think about it, a “breastfeeding service” might be a cool idea for the more progressive houses of worship.
I still don’t even understand why this has to be a topic of conversation. Why can’t people just realize that breastfeeding is a crucial part of a child’s life. So many people like to affirm, “breast is best” but are paradoxically wiling to make it impossible for a child to have access to the breast. As a victim of breastfeeding discrimination, it makes me angry to know our country is not moving forward. The worst part is that the only discrimination and negative remarks I’ve ever received in response to public nursing are from WOMEN. Never once has a man approached me to lecture me on the indecency of my acts. However, I have had numerous women lecture me about public nursing. Even at my own home, guests have remarked how uncomfortable it makes them feel that I am nursing around them. So leave! If you don’t want to see me breastfeeding, then don’t watch. Its that simple.
What I can’t make out from the press on this story is who the harasser was. If it was just another patron, and not the owner or manager, then I don’t think Illinois’s public breastfeeding law is going to help here. The reporter would pretty much have gotten that aspect correct.
The article states that it was simply another patron at the park, but where IL breastfeeding law is important here is that it protects a woman from discrimination by any business owner or manager of any establishment, public or private. By only saying that it’s “not illegal” it leaves the door open for some business owner to think that this sort of thing is up for debate, and that he/she has the right to remove someone from his/her property for doing something he/she finds questionable, which is illegal in Illinois.
This is like saying “it’s not illegal to wear flip-flops in Illinois.” Okay, it’s NOT illegal, but a business owner/manager absolutely has the right to not serve you if they don’t like your footwear. Lots of places in Illinois have dress codes. So flip-flops can be debated.
But breastfeeding in public is not up for debate. It is protected by law, and unless business owners and managers know otherwise, they can be sitting on the other end of a lawsuit.
What the anti-breastfeeder did (while reprehensible) is not “illegal” — so that wasn’t where my focus was — but the reporter got it 50% wrong by stating that breastfeeding in public was just “not illegal.”
I see your point. I may be missing something about the nurse-in. Aren’t nurse-ins to send a message to the perp.? Did someone at the store (or perhaps this is a mall?) act inappropriately?
I am not defending the rude and inappropriate patron. But I don’t understand why the site owner is being protested. Did the nursing mom ask for help from the owner and manager and not get it? Could the owner or manager have done something?
As I see it, the Nurse-In is designed to bring attention to the fact that nursing in public is not only allowed, but protected by law, in an effort to limit the misinformation and lack of education on the subject. If people get the message that it is not okay to harass a nursing mother, perhaps less mothers will have to suffer this humiliation.
This could have been a really big win if the reporter had bothered to fully report the “Right to Breastfeed” act, as opposed to simply saying it’s “not illegal” — though that is a minor start — I think it only stirs up debate about whether it’s “okay” to breastfeed in public, and does not tell business owners/managers what they can expect if they tried to discriminate against a woman for doing so.
Hmm. For another post, but I think nurse-ins that potentially hurt an entity or person that/who didn’t do anything wrong are not a good thing.
On the “is public breastfeeding okay” arguing, sadly that starts with every story concerning breastfeeding in public law. Whether it is “okay” is entirely irrelevant to whether it is legal but the media loves to watch people tear each other apart over public breastfeeding. 
Ah, but all they’re doing is gathering in Lincoln Square (public property) to nurse. How is that hurting anyone? And wouldn’t the argument be that obviously they are not hurting anyone, so why would someone believe it is wrong to gather in a public square and feed babies?
It’s unfortunate that women keep running into this problem. I have nursed in public (usually with a cover because my kid gets distracted and unlatches a lot) but have never been bothered about it. I think I’ve had a few people look at me, realize what I’m doing, and then quickly look away. I have a cover on! It’s like wearing a tee shirt. Whatever. I’m glad that there are laws in place to protect nursing mothers.
Do you mean “shoddy” reporting? ;o)
I think your letter is brilliant, and I hope the news writers start to actually learn the laws properly, realise that breastfeeding is protected and report accordingly.
Are there states there in the US where breastfeeding is not protected? I’m still finding it hard to get my head around laws being different in different parts of the country, as here laws are country wide.
Yeah, I’m aware of my spelling mistake — too late to change it now though (the url is tied to the subject name).
Oh, and yes, there are some states that do not have laws specifically protecting breastfeeding, and there are other laws that don’t even consider it necessarily legal. The Breastfeeding Promotion Act that’s in Washington right now would make breastfeeding protections federal (nationwide) law. Who knows if it will get passed though. We can’t even get this healthcare stuff buttoned up.
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Didn’t know till I saw the news coverage today that Lincoln Square was a park and not a shopping mall (we can’t all live in Chicago, ya know). Looks like it was very kewl!
Didn’t it say that it was a park in the first story about it? Maybe they assumed people knew that from where she was being interviewed.
No — just said “Lincoln Square” like the reader knew what it was. Which a Chicago-area reader would but not me.
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