Here in the bluest of blue cities on the political map we have a mayor who has taxed cigarettes into the stratosphere (~$12 per pack) because he wants people to live healthier.
The same mayor trampled the rights of business owners to create smoke-free restaurants and bars.
The same mayor decided that trans fats were so bad for us that they needed to be outlawed, making it a crime for any eating establishment to sell trans fats in New York City.
This same mayor is so concerned that New Yorkers are fat that he issued another of his famous edicts requiring that all restaurants, from 5-star establishments to fast food places and Dunkin’ Donuts test their foods for the caloric content and then publish the calories on the menu. Never mind that under his tenure (where he seized control of the schools) literacy levels have plummeted so badly that only those educated before his tenure can read those menus.
Still not enough, old Granny Bloomberg has decided that any soda (er, pop for those outside of NYC) over 16 ounces should be outlawed. The mayor has stated that one may purchase as many sodas as one wishes, but that limiting the size of the beverage is meant to make people think about what they’re doing.
Now old Granny B. is going after moms with newborns. From FoxNews:
The nanny state is going after moms.
Mayor Bloomberg is pushing hospitals to hide their baby formula behind locked doors so more new mothers will breast-feed.
Starting Sept. 3, the city will keep tabs on the number of bottles that participating hospitals stock and use — the most restrictive pro-breast-milk program in the nation.
Under the city Health Department’s voluntary Latch On NYC initiative, 27 of the city’s 40 hospitals have also agreed to give up swag bags sporting formula-company logos, toss out formula-branded tchotchkes like lanyards and mugs, and document a medical reason for every bottle that a newborn receives.
While breast-feeding activists applaud the move, bottle-feeding moms are bristling at the latest lactation lecture.
“If they put pressure on me, I would get annoyed,” said Lynn Sidnam, a Staten Island mother of two formula-fed girls, ages 4 months and 9 years. “It’s for me to choose.”
Under Latch On NYC, new mothers who want formula won’t be denied it, but hospitals will keep infant formula in out-of-the-way secure storerooms or in locked boxes like those used to dispense and track medications.
With each bottle a mother requests and receives, she’ll also get a talking-to. Staffers will explain why she should offer the breast instead.
My wife, a NICU/PICU nurse tells me that hospitals have had initiatives going for some time to encourage breastfeeding. As all of our children were breastfed, I’m sold on its benefits over formula, but that’s not the issue here.
Whatever happened to “Choice?”
Specifically, “My body, my choice!”
Bloomberg’s actions could easily be written off as the obsessive eccentricities of a daffy billionaire who is squandering political capital on needless battles over personal liberties issues while his city plunges further into educational, financial, and criminal disarray, especially in a summer that has seen the murder rate soar. But this would be a mistaken assessment.
The truth is that Bloomberg’s actions comport with the broader agenda of his political party as the nation hurtles toward nationalized health care, complete with rationing systems set in place.
If we add to that a new eugenics movement that makes the eugenics of the early 20th century pale in comparison (because our eugenics employs legalized abortion), the dimensions of the storm upon us begin to come into sharp relief. For example, a few weeks ago, the Democrats in Washington defeated legislation intended to outlaw sex-selective abortions, and 93% of Down Syndrome babies diagnosed in utero are aborted.
A government that is broke, $15 TRILLION in debt and responsible for paying the medical bills, will certainly dictate every aspect of our daily lives as it rations care.
A few months back I had dinner with my friend, Reggie Littlejohn who began and runs the great organization, Women’s Rights Without Fronteirs, dedicated to ending the one child policy, forced abortions and forced sterilizations in China. At dinner, I asked Reggie to help me understand how and why it could be in the best interest of the government of China to maintain and enforce such policies, especially in light of their desire to be an economic superpower. Reggie’s answer was a cause for great concern in light of Granny B. and company.
“If the government can control your body, your fertility, they can control every aspect of your life. It’s a tool of totalitarian control.”
I couldn’t help but remember those words as I read of Bloomberg’s newest mechanism of control. Voluntary on the part of hospitals, for now, but coercive for patients. These same democrats who would apply coercive pressure on mothers to have their babies continue to feed from their bodies post-partum are the same democrats who support killing the child for doing the same while in utero, if that’s the mother’s desire.
So the lesson here is that the only bodily autonomy that is absolutely sacrosanct is an act of autonomy that kills the baby. And my fellow New Yorkers sit still as the legal precedents stripping us of our bodily autonomy continue to mount.
In the not-too-distant future we may well see women being coerced into eugenic abortions by a government unwilling to pay the bills for anything less than a perfectly healthy baby, which is probably why the Democrats couldn’t even get behind legislation aimed at preventing little girls from being aborted for simply being little girls. It would be an unwelcome precedent and a future encumbrance.
If there is any ray of light in all of this, it’s that the Democrats have finally given up on the mantra, “My body, my choice!”
It always did ring hollow.
Coming Home 
Well, if anyone wants to know what another 4 years of Obamanation will be like, this is the coming attractions. These dems are out of control. What is more disturbing than these idiotic proclamations coming from people like this mayor is that the general public simply lets out a long, tired SIGH every time this kind of nuttiness is reported. When will they wake up?
Hospitals in this country have a nasty track record of providing a captive market for baby formula companies. The L&D ward is an inappropriate place to hawk consumer goods, and I praise Bloomberg’s policy for attempting to reverse the harm done by these aggressive marketing tactics. The science is there: breastfeeding is best, and hospitals should be expected to promote practices with the strongest evidence base. What women and families choose to do outside the clinical setting is up to them (and really, they will still be able to get formula in hospitals upon request).
I found it funny that you express so much outrage here but would crusade for anti-abortion “health disclaimer” policies or mandatory waiting periods that treat women like utter morons.
Except Bloomberg isn’t a Democrat.
He’s an independent–a LIBERAL, nut-zoid independent. Here’s some info on him from Wikipedia: Michael Rubens Bloomberg is an American businessman and politician who is currently Mayor of New York City. With a net worth of $22 billion in 2012, he is also the 11th-richest person in the United States
I didn’t think anyone was worth 22 billion dollars… No wonder he wants to dictate to everyone else how to live.
Tom, He’s a lifelong liberal Democrat who couldn’t make it out of the backfield in the 2001 Democrat primaries and switched parties to Republican in order to fill the Giuliani void. Then he became an “Independent”. Putting lipstick on a pig is just that.
T.
I have no problem with hospitals promoting best practices and evidence-based medicine. In fact, they have been doing so without the need for Granny Bloomberg’s input. Placing formula under lock and key begins us down the path to formula being a controlled substance.
The point of the article is to question whatever became of “choice”. What about government not hectoring women with things like mandatory waiting periods? What about a woman’s right to do what she wishes with her body? L&D wards are exactly the place to give away free formula samples, as…
get ready…
here it comes…
That’s where newborns reside and are in need of nourishment. (The gift shop is kinda out of the way and not open at all hours when baby gets hungry.)
Again, I’m a great proponent of breastfeeding, but treating formula like it’s a narcotic is a bit much. It’s also coercive.
[…] Coming Home tells us why abortion advocates in the blue state of New York cannot not claim, “My body, my choice,” with a straight face anymore. Their pro-abortion mayor has issued another dictum. After banning the Big Gulp and taxing cigarettes to the hilt, Bloomberg is now going after mothers who choose bottle feeding. Quoting Fox News: Mayor Bloomberg is pushing hospitals to hide their baby formula behind locked doors so more new mothers will breast-feed…. […]
[…] Coming Home tells us why abortion advocates in the blue state of New York cannot not claim, “My body, my choice,” with a straight face anymore. Their pro-abortion mayor has issued another dictum. After banning the Big Gulp and taxing cigarettes to the hilt, Bloomberg is now going after mothers who choose bottle feeding. Quoting Fox News: Mayor Bloomberg is pushing hospitals to hide their baby formula behind locked doors so more new mothers will breast-feed…. […]
Mayor Michael Bloomberg is the same guy who has initiated the quantity constraints on sugary beverages that can be sold in New York, limiting the drink size to 16 oz.
The hilarious part of the Latch On – NAZI mayor’s edict is that he can’t limit portion sizes. Breasts produce milk on demand, based on how much the baby suckles. So a dedicated mom (on government assistance) could put in a lot of couch time with her baby, feeding huge amounts of breast milk which Bloomberg has no means to quantify. Once he figures this out, he’ll go NUTZ!
This Pharmer is glad to see the hospitals offering formula goodies and deals to moms. Working moms most often need to use formula, even if they also breastfeed. It’s crazy not to allow them to be introduced to the alternatives. Mistreating moms who work outside the home to support their kids is counterproductive.
Adding unnecessary constraints and demands with respect to child rearing is anti-life, and that’s an adjective which fits crazy Mayor Bloomberg.
[…] Coming Home tells us why abortion advocates in the blue state of New York cannot not claim, “My body, my choice,” with a straight face anymore. Their pro-abortion mayor has issued another dictum. After banning the Big Gulp and taxing cigarettes to the hilt, Bloomberg is now going after mothers who choose bottle feeding. Quoting Fox News: Mayor Bloomberg is pushing hospitals to hide their baby formula behind locked doors so more new mothers will breast-feed…. Under Latch On NYC, new mothers who want formula won’t be denied it, but hospitals will keep infant formula in out-of-the-way secure storerooms or in locked boxes like those used to dispense and track medications. With each bottle a mother requests and receives, she’ll also get a talking-to. Staffers will explain why she should offer the breast instead. […]
We read your blog posting with interest and wanted to respond and address several inaccuracies.
The piece states: “Whatever happened to “Choice?”
Specifically, “My body, my choice!”
Our goal is to support a mother in whatever decision she makes when it comes to nursing her baby and this initiative specifically is designed to support a mother who decides that she wants to breast-feed by asking participating hospital staff to respect her and refrain from automatically supplementing her baby with formula (unless it becomes medically necessary or the mother changes her mind).
Bottom line: It does not restrict the mother’s nursing options in any way – nor does it restrict access to formula for those who want it.
So what this boils down to is…don’t inhibit the working women from getting back to work, even if it’s not so good for their baby? Sorry, that doesn’t fly. We’d solve a lot of problems in society if the Rosie the Riveters would come home ,take care of their children instead of dragging and dropping them at the government school indoctrination center (and I speak as a mother who’s been there done that with feminism). Welfare moms are another (tragic) story – but the hospital encouraging breastfeeding would be the least of their concerns.
We’ve had decades of forced propagandizing for formula and no great shakes health results to show for it. This policy only reverses that mistaken shilling that hospitals have done for the formula companies.
In-the-hospital is the *only* time that breastfeeding can be started – once formula is started, it’s almost impossible to switch to breastfeeding. Since that’s not true the other way (one can always drop down to formula), it really is best for the hospital to give the baby the best shot at breastfeeding.
NYC Department of Health states that there were several inaccuracies they wished to address, and then failed to highlight so much as one. I understand the need to carry water for the Mayor, and that Dept. of Health will be integral to this policy moving forward. However, let’s set the record straight, and let’s talk like the medical professionals we are.
The truth of the matter is that most women receive pre-natal care for their babies, and it is during the long run-up to delivery that the discussion of breast-feeding (AGAIN, I’m a HUGE proponent, with all three of my children having been breast-fed) is best had with the Obstetrician, nurse practitioner, or midwife. Once a woman has delivered, it is coercive to hector her about the benefits of nursing when she is physically exhausted, still recovering from surgery (in the case of C-sections), and undergoing a host of emotional fluctuations, many of which are hormonally fueled.
Again, it is simply coercive. It also is dismissive of the great many women who have actually considered their options before delivery, and have made up their minds. An offer of a lactation consultant is one thing. A sermon with every formula bottle is quite another.
If the NYC Department of Health wishes to comment here, they are most welcome; but please leave behind such sophomoric pretenses as:
Locking up the formula along with the morphine will only cause delays in already overstretched nursing staffs getting the formula to the crying baby, making what ought to be a joyful time more stressful than it needs to be. Therein lies the coercion.
I pity the person at NYCDH who offered up such a pathetic and ethically blind justification for the advancement of the nanny state.
Does anyone at NYCDH recall the feminist mantra of respecting women’s choices? Does anyone at NYCDH see that this policy is as imperious and dismissive as their megalomaniac boss in City Hall?
Biomedical ethics requires the absence of coercion for the legitimate exercise of “choice”. We are only as good as our choices, freely made.
Dr Nadal,
You are not responding to the point that historically, women have been “coerced” into bottlefeeding by the hospital propaganda. If you agree that “breast is best”, why not allow the hospitals to say that with their policies?
You make the point that women have had all the way up to the point of birth to make up their mind about breastfeeding – but perhaps the situation is not unlike the decision a birthmother makes about adoption – they always wait until after the birth in case the mother changes her mind.
I fed my first formula because I didn’t know any better and the hospital didn’t tell me any better and they made it easy. Then I wised up for my other two.
They say “the law is a teacher”. Perhaps this is a similar situation wherein the hospital *lives out* what it teaches by not putting formula front-and-center and making it easy to bottlefeed.
Thank you Gerry and all reasonable respondents for sharp analysis. We as a Nation have hit an impasse that must be resolved during this election or we may undoubtedly fall off into an abyss. In our Constitution our rights in America, are given by Our Creator. The prevailing worldview at the moment, however is Secular Humanism, where elitist progressives believe they (MAN) are “gods”. They know best what is good for everyone. That is why God is being driven from all sectors of society. If man gives, he arbitrarily can/will take it away.
Emperor Bloomberg is a chief example. Rhom Emmanuel and other Mayors want to keep Chick-fil-A from getting permits to build. What is next? Do we remain a country with “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness for ALL.” Or will we give our God -given rights over to arrogant usurpers who will hoard “the PIE”, determine how or “IF” it will be distributed and not care who they hurt in the long run. OUR CHILDREN deserve better. Will enough Americans act and ask God to help us turn the country back to value its founding principles? “In God we Trust” is our National motto. Since we have turned our back on God has our nation improved or is it going to “hell in a hand basket”? I implore you to Pray, research what the candidates really stand for, then Vote for those who will honor God, uphold our Constitution and our declaration of INDEPENDENCE FROM Tyranny.
Thank you Gerry for sharp analysis. We as a Nation have hit an impasse that must be resolved during this election or we may undoubtedly fall off into an abyss. In our Constitution our rights in America, are given by Our Creator. The prevailing worldview at the moment, however is Secular Humanism, where elitist progressives believe they (MAN) are “gods”. They know best what is good for everyone. That is why God is being driven from all sectors of society. If man give us rights, he arbitrarily can/will take it away. We deem “Formula not the best option”.
Emperor Bloomberg is a chief example. Rahm Emmanuel and other Mayors want to keep Chick-fil-A from getting permits to build. What is next? Do we remain a country with “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness for ALL.” Or will we give our God -given rights over to arrogant usurpers who will hoard “the PIE”, determine how or “IF” it will be distributed and not care who they hurt in the long run. OUR CHILDREN deserve better. Will enough Americans act and ask God to help us turn the country back to value its founding principles? “In God we Trust” is our National motto. Since we have turned our back on God has our nation improved or is it going to “hell in a hand basket”? I implore you to Pray, research what the candidates really stand for, then Vote for those who will honor God, uphold our Constitution and our Declaration of INDEPENDENCE FROM Tyranny.
It’s very interesting that the NYC Health Department has time to troll the web, particularly a weblog that has absolutely nothing to do with NYC Health. If this is legit, folks, there are your tax dollars at work!
Sue, since when is respecting the right and ability of mothers to make choices regarding feeding their children necesarily against breast feeding? I can write a law that says how long you must wash your hands after using the toilet, and enforce that law by automatically locking the bathroom door until a computer program deems you have complied. I can also justifiy this law using data on handwashing and infectious disease incidence. And if someone argues against that law, are they necessarily advocating for salmonella? I think the point here is whether or not we win or lose as a society when government suplants the education, sensibiilities, sense of nurture, sense of duty, responsibility, and individual preference, in the people who created it with those of its own. By the way, Sue, your post today is infintiely more cogent, and much less scary, than the ramblings in your post of yesterday. So this song, from Dinah Washington, is for you:
What a difference a day made
Twenty-four little hours
Brought the sun and the flowers
Where there used to be rain…
Sue, Respectfully, I do not see a historical coercion here; not as you suggest. At every one of my children’s births, we received the promo bags of formula. It didn’t dissuade Regina, and her physicians had spoken of nursing throughout the pregnancy.
We were offered lactation consultants for every child, especially when our third child was having difficulty latching on. Nobody tried to coerce us, either overtly or covertly, into bottle feeds.
Even if you experienced legitimate coercion, becoming coercive in the opposite direction is just as unethical, even though the breast is best. In ethics the ends never, EVER justify the means. Government intrusion into areas of patient autonomy never work out well for the patients. As I said in the post, hospitals have been doing a good job of late with their own encouragement of breast-feeding and not just showing up with a bottle of formula. However, treating formula like it’s morphine, and mothers having to endure a state-sponsored sermon with every bottle-feed does not respect patient autonomy or the choices freely made by mothers.
Crime and a host of other plagues, which are proper to Granny B.’s job description ought to occupy his every waking moment in office. I already have a wife and a mother to nag me about my eating habits–and they DON”T. I don’t need Granny B.
Neither do post-partum women.
Chaplain Viviana V Hernandez:
You are absolutely correct. What you describe is nothing less than an atheistic/communist society. After all, the first tenet of communism is that there is no God. We grow ominously closer and closer to that definition each day in this country. I believe one of the methods of propaganda is to repeat something over and over again until it becomes set in every mind. It is also a practice to start out with something acceptable and once the population swallows that, it moves to bigger and much more insidious changes. Example: early abortion led to abortion in the 2nd and 3rd trimester, now we have partial-birth abortion. Just recently I read an article written by Australian bio-ethicists that are promoting something called “AFTER-birth abortion.” This is an evil premise that says that no life has a right to life unless it can sustain life on it’s own. That somehow translates in their minds that a human life isn’t a person…again with the personhood argument. What’s next? We now have same-sex “marriages”, doctor-assisted “suicide”, and all sorts of other evils. We are outraged when a restaurant owner has the audacity to support traditional marriage. I ask: WHAT IS NEXT?
Sister Terese Peter,
As the massive outpouring of support for Chik-fil-A indicates, the other side is a loud and vicious minority. Their counter-protest “kiss-in” fizzled the next day. Faithful Christians far outnumber those whose MSM patrons make them seem so much larger than life.
I”m not American, but based on what I know (and that may be inaccurate), the best thing to promote breastfeeding is to develop a reasonable maternity leave. Americans I know get very little time and it is very difficult to breastfeed if you have to go back to work after 6 weeks. By that time the baby and mom are just getting into the routine of things but mom has to introduce a bottle well before then. I truly admire women who manage to continue under such circumstances. Instead of fighting for the right to abort their babies, women need to fight for the recognition that our bodies ARE different. That we ARE mothers and THAT business ought to recognize this fact. Shared work times, paid maternity leave where possible will help more women breastfeed up to 6 months.
Sue I take issue with your very derogatory view of women who work. Many women simply cannot afford to stay at home today, given the economics. Others are forced out to work by their husbands (I personally encountered women in this situation when I was a LaLeche League leader). Stop judging these women. Just because you were there and you changed your mind, doesn’t mean everyone was in your situation.
Many working women I know, after taking 6 months to a year off, end up staying home. This period gives them the time to bond with their baby, adjust the family income, while still being paid some of their salary.
I am a 35 year old stay at home mom/college student with five children ALL of whom I nursed. I decided to comment here because my personal experience I felt may offer a different view. I also want to mention that I am unaware of anyone I know personally that was as actively adamant about breastfeeding. I had two children that breastfed without difficulty and three that I began to question my motives for breastfeeding. Because it was not difficult, it was heart wrenching, pure agony.
I had one child that the Dr. told me was fine but she was so lethargic that she nearly died. Had I not stepped up and challenged him he would have sent me home. At that point, my baby wasn’t even waking up anymore or crying. She was two and a half weeks old. My Dr. assumed I was overreacting and thought my newborn was sleepy. I insisted that she wasn’t nursing correctly because I never felt ‘let down.’ He was irritated with me because I was so upset. I did not want to abandon breasfeeding by offering her a bottle; but he insisted if what I said was true, I should feed her the bottle now. Within minutes after I had coerced her to take the bottle she opened her eyes and woke up. I was a dedicated mother feeding my infant, what if I hadn’t had the immediate access to the formula she needed because of a Dr.’s disbelief?
I am a firm believer in being your child’s advocate. I tried everything, she was never able to nurse. I pumped for two weeks and brought back my milk and pumped her milk for a year. Through mastitis with fever I pumped for my babies, all three of them. I have had mastitis four times and pumped a total of three years. Both of my boys were tongue tied and I even put them through the procedure of having their tongues clipped so they could latch. Theystill never latched properly and I pumped round the clock for all three years, hence the mastitis.
I absolutely believe it is against our constitutional right not to have instant available access to food for our babies. Why should we be forced to eventually go to the Dr. to ask for formula? Are we looking to make formula more expensive? We may as well add it to the list of major pharmacutical companies. What is next, warning labels? My baby needed it right away and to take instant access away from moms is morally wrong.
Frankly, most hospital nurses aren’t even properly trained to give adequate assistance to new moms that desire to nurse. Lactation consultants are supposed to come upon request, but in my personal experience more often than not, they were too busy or unavailable when you needed them. When they did visit, most were unable to provide me with as much info as I already knew. They were unfamiliar with most lactation problems. You may as well say you are too stupid to know what’s best, you don’t deserve an option.
Also, to whomever compared this to abortion, that is ridiculous. You are comparing two totally separate issues. This is taking the right from me to choose to feed my baby, as opposed to abortion which requires taking a life. I think we all know that life at any stage is still just that, a life. Abortion is just a failed attempt if it does not result in a death. No matter how you justify it, for the sake of convenience, whatever, it is wrong. If it wasn’t wrong, people wouldn’t care about us posting pictures of babies being ripped apart. They don’t want to know because it is disturbing. Of course, we choose not to see so as to pretend that it is not really the death of a baby.