Nanny State Becomes Wet Nurse State

13 Apr, 2010 by Lori Ziganto

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Democrats have long been creepily obsessed with my fancy womb and it’s “reproductive rights”, all as just a way to mask the furthering of their own agendas. They have now moved on to being obsessed with my boobies as well. More goodies hidden in the health care bill have been exposed, literally:

Nursing mothers will now get additional support, thanks to page 1239 of the health care bill that President Obama recently signed into law. It requires employers to provide “a place, other than a bathroom, that is shielded from view and free from intrusion from co-workers and the public, which may be used by an employee to express breast milk.” Only companies with less than 50 employees can claim it’s an undue hardship.

Excuse me? The government is now requiring businesses to set up special rooms? At a time when business are cutting down and laying off left and right, they are now expected to lay out capital which they may not have for no valid reason? All due to a faux victim mentality:

Working mothers like Nahar and Hood have had to carefully tailor their schedules so that they can pump milk in the middle of the day, and avoid stares when they put bottles in the communal refrigerators. Some have to use a bathroom stall to pump milk, as there is no other space available.

Boo-hoo. I breast fed my child until she was 21 months old. I also worked at an office until she was two years old. As such, I was a pumper. Guess what? I pumped in the bathroom and wasn’t traumatized by having to do so. I didn’t require a fancy pants special room just for me and my breasts, nor would I have ever expected one. I chose to have a child. I chose to breast feed. My employer did not.

You should carefully schedule your pumping time so as not to interfere with the rest of the office and, you know, your job. It’s infuriating that this is made out to be some hardship. It’s not an inconvenience (albeit not the most pleasant thing to do), as some are claiming. Or, at least it shouldn’t feel like one; you are doing it to feed your child.

Why the need to be an aristocrat about it? Who cares where you pump as long as you can lock the door — especially if you work in an office with, say, Elliot Spitzer. Just pump and get it done. My pump came with a little cooler and travel bottle containers. I didn’t even need to suffer the apparent shame of putting my breast milk in “the communal refrigerator.”

This really is entitlement and victim mentality at it’s worse. Lighten up, pumpers! You aren’t super special. I used to buzz my boss and tell him “Be back in 20 minutes, I’ll be off being Bessie (the cow).” I didn’t feel the need to have a shrine erected to myself nor to inconvenience the rest of the staff. Of which, by the way, I was the only one in my seven years of working there, who pumped. Under this new law, they still need to have a special room set aside and available for phantom pumpers.

What about offices or workplaces that are predominantly male? What about women who formula feed? Are they to be looked down upon now, all while taking up your slack as you spend time in your breastfeeding suite?

And who is going to pay for these special rooms? Smaller, yet over the 50 person mark, companies may as well just give all nursing moms, and women of child-bearing years who may end up choosing to breast feed, the boot to save themselves the totally unnecessary expense. The law of unintended consequences, Democrats. Study up on it. (You do enjoy teachable moments, right?)

We women can handle our own breasts and their pumping needs. We can work things out, on our own, with our employers, as we mutually see fit. What we don’t need is Nanny State Wet Nurses watching over us and not just because that is super creepy.

So, once again we see that not only do Democrats hate the private sector, but they also hate women.

And their boobies.

(Originally posted at David Horowitz’s NewsReal; Cross-posted at Snark and Boobs)