The Twinkies

OK, I can’t really get bent out of shape about the Facebook thing, and I don’t have a lot of sympathy for the woman who wants yet more accomodations while she takes her medical exams again after failing them the first time. Life is short and I can’t muster indignity for everything. However, the incident at the Canada YMCA really bothers me.

Carolynn was nursing at a Y in Canada while watching her older children’s swimming lesson. She was approached by a staff member who asked her to move to a more private location because the Y was “a family-oriented place.” When Carolynn stood her ground and refused to move the employee left and returned, reporting that “her supervisor, Sherri Perez, told her that my right to breastfeed did not extend to the Y.” Later the staff admitted that “no person had complained, but that the staff had collectively agreed that my breastfeeding was indecent, that they were incredulous that I would breastfeed there, and that something should be said to me.”

Mind you, this is all happening in a city in which, as I recall from when I lived there, a woman may legally be topless anywhere a man is not required to wear a shirt.

So, the nursing mother contacts a lawyer and the Ontario Human Rights Commission. According to the OHRC’s web site:

You have rights as a nursing mother. For example, you have the right to breastfeed a child in a public area. No one should prevent you from nursing your child simply because you are in a public area. They should not ask you to “cover up”, disturb you, or ask you to move to another area that is more “discreet”.(source)

Alas, the woman at the OHRC did not appear to be up to date on the law and informed the mother that breastfeeding was not, in fact, appropriate everywhere and since she had been offered a more discreet location there was no human rights violation.

What is it with people lately not reading the laws?

You can follow this story via Carolynn’s blog, set up specifically to track the progress of this case.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 14th, 2007 at 9:54 am and is filed under Breastfeeding. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.