Of Course Breastfeeding Is a Political Issue

This should not surprise us. Political squabblers have seized upon breastfeeding as a partisan issue. Over the weekend, the New York Times reported:

A resolution to encourage breast-feeding was expected to be approved quickly and easily by the hundreds of government delegates who gathered this spring in Geneva for the United Nations-affiliated World Health Assembly.

Based on decades of research, the resolution says that mother’s milk is healthiest for children and countries should strive to limit the inaccurate or misleading marketing of breast milk substitutes.

Then the United States delegation, embracing the interests of infant formula manufacturers, upended the deliberations.

Oh No He Didn’t! Oh Yes He Did!

Naturally, President Trump on Monday arose to deny the story and endorse it at the same time:

The failing NY Times Fake News story today about breast feeding must be called out. The U.S. strongly supports breast feeding but we don’t believe women should be denied access to formula. Many women need this option because of malnutrition and poverty.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 9, 2018

Without a doubt, you can find whatever you want in this story. Many women are already unhappy with Trump. So this pours gas on that fire. Breastfeeding is a sacred issue.

Defiant Opposition

Nonetheless, our President’s defenders are taking pride in annoying their opposition with this. Writing in the Weekly Standard, Jonathan Last praises his president for “standing up to the lactation bullies.” His writing about “a wild-eyed zealot . . . yammering on about the breast sandwich” is memorable. But not in a good way.

Please, can we leave breastfeeding out of our polarized politics?

And by the way, this resolution that put people into a lather passed anyway. Russia endorsed it. End of discussion.

Click here for more from the Times, and here for Last’s commentary. For a longer view, click here.

Woman Nursing Her Son, painting by Salvador Dali / WikiArt

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July 10, 2018