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Breastfeeding during Story Time DebatedAt a December 19 meeting, the Normal (Ill.) Public Library board approved by 5–1 the formation of a special committee to discuss a dispute regarding a library trustee who nursed her 2-year-old during library storytime. Board member Jodie Slothower said she discreetly breast-fed her son while a story was read during a program in November; two days later, a librarian called her to request that she not nurse in the library. “I wasn’t bare-chested and it wasn’t more than a couple of minutes. No one seemed to notice,” Slothower said in the December 19 Bloomington Pantagraph. She also said she and other mothers nursed their children without complaint during summer story hours. Wayne Karplus, the city’s deputy attorney, said that although women have a constitutional right to breast-feed in public, officials also have the right to suggest “reasonable alternatives” if they think it interferes with services. Some of the two dozen people in the audience spoke passionately about the issue. “A public apology is in order,” resident Annelies McVoy said in the December 20 Pantagraph. “I am willing and capable of organizing a nonconfrontational nurse-in at your library.” Posted December 24, 2001. |
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