I’m confused. Now Liberals hate breast-feeding?
Via Slate:
Public health advocates often use the phrase natural in their attempts to promote breast-feeding. As a marketing strategy, it’s a shrewd move. Most mothers will feel at least a little bit guilty about going the “unnatural” route and will be too tired to question the speciousness of what’s being implied. But as a public health strategy, this use of natural may not be a very wise move at all.
In a new paper recently published in Pediatrics, bioethicists Jessica Martucci and Anne Barnhill argue that the emphasis on the “natural” aspects of breast-feeding can easily backfire. By endorsing breast-feeding as natural, they say, breast-feeding advocates are reinforcing the idea that natural is A) something that actually exists and B) healthier. By setting up this dichotomy, these pro–breast-feeding campaigns might serve as unintentional fodder for concerns against “unnatural” interventions like vaccinations.