by Amy Spangler
May 20, 2010

In a news segment titled, “What Would You Do?”, ABC placed hidden cameras in a Brooklyn, New York cafe to see how customers would react to a breastfeeding mother being verbally harassed by the store manager. Female actors (using a lifelike doll for a baby) posed as breastfeeding moms; a male actor played the part of the verbally abusive store manager, telling one mom to move to the bathroom and criticizing another for “whipping out her hooters.”

With a few notable exceptions, the reaction of the customers was mostly supportive of the young mothers (one white, one black, one teen), however, the segment did convey the subtle reminder that in 2004, 57 percent of individuals responding to an American Dietetic Association survey stated that women should not breastfeed in public and 72 percent believed that it was wrong to show a woman breastfeeding on television programs. Less than 4,000 people participated in the survey, arguably a small sample, but six years later one wonders how much has really changed?

In cultures where breastfeeding is the norm, people scoff at the need for laws to protect a mother’s right to breastfeed in public. But in the U.S. such laws are applauded as a sign of progress toward restoring breastfeeding to its rightful place—as the normal way to feed a baby. When one considers how often babies breastfeed (8–12 times in a 24-hour period in the early weeks), it’s easy to understand why breastfeeding is likely to occur here, there, and everywhere mothers and babies find themselves. We will know society’s view on “what’s normal” has changed when it is mothers and babies breastfeeding that we applaud—and not the laws needed to protect their rights.