Nursing mother's protest grows

After waiting five hours at the Burlington, Vt., airport, Emily Gillette finally boarded a Delta commuter flight and discreetly began breast-feeding her exhausted toddler. And that's when the trouble started.

"The flight attendant said, 'You are offending me,' " Gillette recalled yesterday in a telephone interview from her home in New Mexico. "I've always breast-fed my daughter when she wants, where she wants."

After she, her husband, and 22-month-old daughter were kicked off the plane last month, Gillette, 27, filed a discrimination complaint with the Vermont Human Rights Commission. As word of the case spread on online mothering forums, outrage boiled.

Today, with the frantic Thanksgiving travel week underway, dozens of self-proclaimed "lactivists" plan to suckle their infants in front of Delta ticketing counters around the nation, including at Logan International Airport.

The goals of the protest are to force airlines to review their breast-feeding policies and to pressure Congress to pass protections for breast-feeding women in the workplace, said Elizabeth A. Boepple of Manchester, Vt., Gillette's lawyer and one of the protest organizers.

Delta has reprimanded the flight attendant in the Gillette case, and a spokesman has said that women can breast-feed on any Delta plane. But Gillette said she will push her case until the airline issues that policy in writing, and a spokesman said yesterday that Delta has no plans to do so.

The case is another chapter in the debate pitting nursing mothers' rights against notions of propriety. Public nudity remains largely forbidden: Janet Jackson's bared breast during the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show sparked national outrage. At the same time, researchers have established that breast-feeding delivers considerable long-term health benefits for infants and mothers.

To date, 38 states have passed laws protecting a woman's right to breast-feed at restaurants, malls, and other public places. The states include Vermont, but not Massachusetts, where state lawmakers are considering such a bill.

"It's prudishness. People here confuse a simple act which is so useful with being flagrant," said state Senator Susan C. Fargo, the Lincoln Democrat sponsoring the bill. "Society's going to have to get used to it."

Fargo said she was unsure if the proposal will pass in the current legislative session, which ends in January. It remains in a Senate committee, where several earlier versions died in recent years.

"Most of the committee members have been men, and they just weren't interested," she said. "But it's not a women's issue. It's a health issue."

Repeated studies have shown that breast milk gives infants lasting protection against colds, flu, infections, and pneumonia, while possibly reducing the likelihood of obesity, which can lead to heart disease and diabetes. Nursing also helps mothers lose pregnancy weight quickly. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that new mothers give only breast milk for the first six months of a child's life, and says there is no evidence of harm if breastfeeding continues into a child's third year.

Nonetheless, every few months, a breast-feeding controversy seems to erupt somewhere in the United States. In July, activists protested after Victoria's Secret stores in Massachusetts and Wisconsin kicked out women for breast-feeding. Last year, Barbara Walters said on ABC's "The View" that a breast-feeding woman on a flight she had taken made her feel awkward. Activists, with babies in tow, showed up in force outside ABC News headquarters in New York City days later.

Gillette, who lives in Espanola, N.M., said she had taken at least two-dozen flights during which she breast-fed her daughter, River. On Oct. 13, she was flying from Burlington to New York on Freedom Airlines, a Delta commuter affiliate required to follow Delta's policies.

When Gillette started breast-feeding as the plane sat at the gate, the female flight attendant, who has not been named by Delta, demanded that Gillette cover up with a blanket. Gillette said that she was in the rear of the plane at a window seat, with her shirt covering most of her breast.

"I said I would not put a blanket over my child's head," Gillette said. "The next thing we know, there was a Delta ticket agent standing over us. I was just shocked."

Delta provided her family with a hotel room that night and another flight to New York the next day. "Delta called back a few days later and said it does not take responsibility for this," Gillette said.

Delta has until Nov. 27 to respond to her complaint to the human rights commission. If the case is not settled, the commission must consider whether to file a civil lawsuit against the airline.

"Delta as an airline fully supports mothers' rights to breast-feed babies on the aircraft," airline spokesman Anthony Black said yesterday. "We regret the decision that had the passenger removed from that flight, as it was not in keeping with our high service standards."

The company that owns Freedom Airlines, Mesa Air Group Inc., issued a statement saying it supported the right to breast-feed on flights.

Raja Mishra can be reached at rmishra@globe.com.