Breastfeeding booth
At a Heber City, Utah, farmer's market, a breastfeeding booth received unwanted attention during a week designed to promote breastfeeding awareness. A booth meant for nursing moms to breastfeed out of the sun and what should have been a nice refuge turned into a strange battle between booth staff and the market organizer. After the organizer complained about the photos displayed in the booth, she then notified city hall, who sent out the police chief to investigate.
Meghan Reed, president of the Utah Breastfeeding Coalition, reports that she was surprised when she was repeatedly confronted by market organizer Suzanne Hansen, who apparently had a beef with the booth and some photos that were on display. Reed says that when they applied for booth space, they outlined what it would consist of and they were approved with no problems. But once Hansen got a glimpse of the shocking photos of the happy boobie babies and their moms, she was over it.
Breastfeeding in public is legal in Utah. Hansen apparently didn't know that, but if she did know, she apparently wanted to make some sort of a ridiculous statement about how inappropriate the whole thing was.
Photo credit: KUTV.com
Unfortunately for her, the complaints did nothing more than waste the police chief's time and garner even more support for Reed and her booth. "I saw absolutely no problems with it at all," says police chief Dave Booth said. "Utah law is very clear, very specific and protects breastfeeding... We definitely support anything that we can do to raise any type of awareness or to support any type of breastfeeding."
Just when I think I have heard all of the stupid things, I hear something that is even more stupid. What did Hansen think was going to happen when a booth was set up for breastfeeding moms? And what did she think was going to happen when passers-by viewed the photos? I know, I know, it's a boob. It's scary, right? It would surely lead to boobs out, mass hysteria everywhere, couples fornicating in the street, children scarred for life.
Eh, not really. She needs to get over her fear of the female breast, particularly when it comes to nourishing our young. Because when people, including children, see women breastfeeding, they inherently know that it's a normal way to feed a baby and they don't call the police when there is a breastfeeding booth set up at a farmer's market.
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