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First of all, breastfeeding is a purely natural act and is perhaps the most cherished time spent between mother and child. Nature knows best, and you can see it clearly in this act, if you look upon the picture with intelligence and perhaps a bit of foresight. Formula cannot give a child what it needs to develop a healthy immune system; the child can receive this only from its mother.

It seems at times that the notion against breastfeeding is rooted in some sort of fear that goes back to a Puritan way of seeing things. Many see sexual connotations in breastfeeding, and perhaps this is why some would seek to banish public breastfeeding altogether; whether they realize this fear on a conscious level or not is another story. While I believe that seeing sexual connotations in it takes the idea into places where it doesn't need to go, it is because of sex that the baby is born; it's because of sex that the mother has milk...it's because of sex that we're all here in the first place. So this fear, in my mind, is a sign of a country that has not fully moved away from the frigid notions that once trapped it. But then, decades ago, public breastfeeding was rather common, until the big companies began making formula and luring young, vain women with the promise of breasts that wouldn't sag due to breastfeeding.

Say a woman lives in a busy city; she's out one day with her kid and he's hungry. She can't rush back home to feed him (public restrooms aren't sanitary enough for this). Someone might say she should bottle her milk, but many women prefer to do it naturally; there is far less bonding with the child if it is bottle-fed. Mothers should be allowed to feed their babies whenever and wherever. After all, this is supposed to be a free country. It isn't like they're holding up a bank.

I've heard several people voice the idea of creating certain places especially for breastfeeding. That reminds me of certain tribes that would force women to stay in huts away from the village during their menstrual cycles. This is the twenty-first century. This is America. Segregation is supposed to be over.

Perhaps no other time is as important as that when it comes to mother-child bonding. And to think that there are people who view it as public indecency appalls me. Breastfeeding is ultimately a natural act in a world that is trying to forego and destroy nature. I've heard mothers yell and scream at their children in public, and I've seen women whip their kids in public with unnecessary force, but no one says anything about that. When someone votes against something, there is usually some part of that topic that they view as a threat (myself included). So the question here is, Why do so many feel threatened by seeing a mother breastfeed her child?

Learn more about this author, Jason Lusk.
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