New Breastfeeding Advocacy Group Formed
The people behind the Applebee’s nurse-ins now bring you FirstRight, a national grassroots organization dedicated to addressing incidents of breastfeeding discrimination, educating businesses and the general public about breastfeeding rights, and facilitating legislative change. The invitation to join FirstRights.org states:
Now is an exciting time for breastfeeding advocacy! The recent outpouring of activism and support for women and children who have been discriminated against has shown that people are passionate about defending the rights of breastfeeding mothers and children. Channeling that passion into positive, professional, and productive action is the purpose of a new national grassroots organization called FirstRight. FirstRight exists to ensure freedom from discrimination for breastfeeding mothers and their children.
Sounds like a good idea to me, as long as the group works collaboratively — as it pledges to do — with state breastfeeding coalitions and other breastfeeding advocacy groups. La Leche League handles breastfeeding education and support and generally stays out of lactation activism (”lactivism”), but there are other national groups out there advocating for breastfeeding. Promotion of Mother’s Milk Inc. (ProMom) dedicates itself to increasing public awareness and public acceptance of breastfeeding. The National Alliance for Breastfeeding Advocacy is located just outside Washington, D.C. and works to be breastfeeding’s primary lobbying arm, responsible for monitoring policy for its impact on the breastfeeding family. The Breastfeeding Advocacy Network grew to become a national organization after it originally formed as a local group to support women discriminated against due to breastfeeding.
It seems that FirstRight could fill a need for a cohesive, proactive entity to find and support mothers who have faced discrimination, to educate the public, and to work on legislative change. Some people will probably quibble over whether or not there’s a “right” to breastfeed, and whether it’s a mother’s right to breastfeed or a child’s right to eat (or both), but that’s just the reason why it could help to have an organization like FirstRight in place — to bring focus, clarity, and authority to the various lactivist causes.
If you are interested in becoming part of FirstRight, check out FirstRight.org, or go directly to join one of the Yahoo groups for the three FirstRight committees: the Breastfeeding Discrimination Task Force, the Breastfeeding Rights Education Committee, and the Breastfeeding Legislative Action Committee.
Tags: activism, breastfeeding, FirstRight, lactation, law, newsRelated Stories
POSTED IN: activism, breastfeeding, law
1 opinion for New Breastfeeding Advocacy Group Formed
Ahmie
Nov 13, 2007 at 2:04 pm
Thanks for the blurb! I hope we’re able to achieve all that you see us as capable of doing.
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