Breastfeeding rights in the United States

Reference & Research Book News, May, 2008

Breastfeeding rights in the United States.

Kedrowski, Karen M. and Michael E. Lipscomb.

Praeger

2008

175 pages

$44.95

Hardcover

Reproductive rights and policy

RJ216

Kedrowski and Lipscomb (both political science, Winthrop U.) begin by listing and analyzing all the laws, policies, judicial opinions, cultural mores and public attitudes about breastfeeding in the US, then compare them to prevailing thought that advocates it but does not allow for it in public or at the workplace. They believe the conflict creates a double bind ("Do it but do not do it here") that creates coercion that is incompatible with the meaningful exercise of rights. Their final chapter takes an interesting point of view that makes breastfeeding activists and liberal feminists allies, a rare but perhaps workable partnership.

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