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HARRISBURG, May 7 -- State Rep. Babette Josephs, D-Phila., joined other women and state legislators today in the Capitol Rotunda to rally for support and to educate the public about the value of breastfeeding.
Josephs has introduced legislation (H.B. 827) that would ensure mothers have the right to breastfeed their children in public or in private.
"When my son was a six-month-old baby, I breastfed him at our local pool," Josephs described during the rally. "Although I was the most modestly attired woman within range of vision, even while nursing, I was asked to stop. I was told to take my son to a dim, damp, drafty and chair-less locker room because the teenagers might see what I was doing.
"I refused and told the pool manager that one of the best outcomes of nursing discreetly in public was that the teenagers did see me. How else would they know how to best take care of their own babies in the future?"
Josephs' legislation (H.B. 827) would protect women's right to breastfeed in public by prohibiting municipalities from creating ordinances against it. The legislation also would not allow them to identify breastfeeding as a public nuisance, indecent exposure or obscene.
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