Florida bill moves to protect nursing moms - bill giving mothers the right to nurse babies in public - Brief Article

Jet, March 8, 1993

A bill to protect mothers who breast-feed in public won the House Criminal Justice Committee's backing in Tallahassee, Fla., after the governor's daughter made her point by quietly feeding her son while waiting to speak.

"She breast-fed twice and nobody noticed," said Rep. Miguel DeGrandy, the bill's Republican sponsor. The bill would prevent a woman from being charged under obscenity, lewdness or public nudity laws for nursing a child, regardless of whether her breast was covered.

Gov. Lawton Chiles' daughter, Rhea Gaye MacKinnon, holding her 7-month-old son, Mack, urged support of the bill to "encourage the healthiest behaviors in our mothers for our babies." DeGrandy introduced the bill after women in Miami were asked to leave restaurants, malls and movie theaters when they breast-fed babies.