Bill Protects Breast-Feeding Mothers
After agonizing for a year, the Republican House on Monday approved a measure that says women who breast-feed in public cannot be charged with indecent exposure.
“We see this as the minimum we can do for breast-feeding women who get harassed when they try to feed their babies in public,” said one of this bill’s sponsors, Rep. Jeri Costa, D-Marysville.
The measure, which goes to the Senate for expected passage, also would require businesses to provide, at the least, a “clean lavatory with a locking door” where working women could express breast milk to feed their babies later.
A business that gave women time to express milk and provided a place to refrigerate it would be able to designate itself “baby friendly,” under the measure, HB1194.
The legislation, primarily sponsored by Costa and Rep. Eileen Cody, D-Seattle, died last year after conservatives and business lobbyists balked at several provisions.
The two sponsors overcame objections after dropping from the proposal language that would have said women have a right to breast-feed in any public or private place, including at work, and allow for a civil fine of up to $1,000 to be assessed of any person found to have violated the right.
Cody said business lobbyists dropped their objections after she agreed to specify that businesses need provide nothing more than a clean restroom for expressing milk.
The bill, which passed 91-6 without debate, “is not great, but it’s a start,” Costa said.
“We feel this bill is a start in getting society to return to the days when nursing was seen as a normal, basic function of motherhood and of life, and to realize that it is incredibly beneficial.”
xxxx CAPITOL NOTES Highlights After agonizing for a year, the Republican House approved a measure that says women who breast-feed in public cannot be charged with indecent exposure.
Coming up The Senate Law and Justice Committee was scheduled Tuesday to hear testimony on bills limiting so-called “partial-birth” abortion and requiring parental notification before a minor could get an abortion.
Overheard “This tears at their very manhood.” - Rep. Hans Dunshee, D-Snohomish, commenting on the effect his first-place finish in the legislative pistol-shooting contest has on his conservative Republican colleagues.
Other people’s houses KANSAS - A Senate committee is preparing a bill that would give funeral processions the right of way over other traffic in Kansas. Some cities already have ordinances giving funeral processions the legal right of way. Elsewhere, most motorists stop out of courtesy to permit them to pass.
Days in session: Monday was day 22 of the 60-day session.
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