Can you find something to hate in supporting breastfeeding while emphasizing every mother has to make the right choice for herself? Well, the ladies of the right can, if it involves Michelle Obama and the federal government.
Recently, the First Lady signaled that the second year of her anti-obesity initiative would focus on breastfeeding. This has gone forward with the utmost caution — her spokeswoman said, “Breastfeeding is a very personal choice for every woman. We are trying to make it easier for those who choose to do it.” And Michelle Obama herself said, “What we’re learning now is that early intervention is key. Breastfeeding. Kids who are breastfed longer have a lower tendency to be obese,” and said special effort would be made to address “the black community — where 40 percent of our babies never get breastfed at all, even in the first weeks of life.”
Separately, the federal government has made it easier for breastfeeding moms on multiple front, most recently by classifying breast pumps as health expenses (along with the likes of acne cream), and also by adding more breastfeeding counseling and supplies to the child nutrition bill, requiring some employers to provide time and space for nursing mothers in the Affordable Care Act, and requiring the same in all federal agencies.
Clearly, it’s all a giant boob-pumping conspiracy. Just ask Michele Bachmann and Michelle Malkin.
It’s a tough line to walk, partly because Republicans are supposed to be pro-motherhood, and the only way to attack initiatives that make it easier for moms is to just whip out some anti-government cliches.
Rep. Bachmann recently said the initiatives amounted to a “new definition [of] the nanny state…This is very consistent with where the hard left is coming from. For them, government is the answer to every problem.” She then added that she breast-fed every single one of her five babies, without the government’s help. If Michele Bachmann can do it!
Malkin tried to inject some Mommy Wars rhetoric, just for good measure.
Bending the IRS code to confer preferential tax treatment on breast-pumping working mothers over stay-at-home nursing moms who don’t use pumps and other moms who for whatever reason have freely opted not to breast-feed their babies.
She then attacks the science behind the breastfeeding-obesity link. (Science: It’s there when it’s convenient!). And coins the phrase “Big Bosom.” Now there’s something Fox News can get behind.
Incidentally, there is another sort of interest in Michelle Obama and the prospect of breastfeeding. Here is the Google Suggest following her name.
Michelle Obama To Promote Breastfeeding As IRS Gives Tax Breaks [Politics Daily]
Super Nanny [Michelle Malkin]