Breastfeeding is Now Officially, Why Did That Take So Long Again?

In news this morning (that should not really be news), we are happy to announce that breastfeeding is now officially legal in all 50 states in the United States, yay!

Wait, what?

If breastfeeding is now legal in all 50 states, that means that there was a time when breastfeeding wasn’t legal?

Apparently, and unfortunately, the answer to that is yes.

Although most of the U.S. states had long ago announced that breastfeeding was legal to do anywhere, anytime (how nice of lawmakers to let babies be fed, right?), two states in particular–Idaho and Utah– had held out and maintained that legally, babies should only be fed when it was convenient for other people and most definitely not exposed (horror of horrors!) in public.

Insert biggest eye-roll ever here.

Thankfully, however, those days are officially and legally over. Idaho first made the leap into supporting breastfeeding publicly in February, thanks to a unanimous 66-0 vote in its favor. The move was a very positive one, concerning the previous stance of male lawmakers in the state, who publicly expressed their concernabout allowing legal breastfeeding to interfere with them being able to enjoy their own meals at a nice restaurant or one Rep.’s concern that a woman could just “whip it out and do it anywhere.”

Yup. He really said that.

Photo by Wes Hicks on Unsplash

And in the last holdout for breastfeeding, in March of 2018, Utah signed a new adapted law into effect that updated its previous stance on public breastfeeding. One of the most important changes to the breastfeeding laws concerned the specific language of Utah’s former bill, which was changed to essentially say that a woman has the right to breastfeed whether or not she is covered. You know, because most people, babies included, don’t enjoy eating their meals with a blanket over their heads. But some Utah lawmakers were really, really concerned that all that breastfeeding might lead to a boob free-for-all for women who were just looking for an excuse to show some skin.

Read the rest at EverydayFamily.com