Target calls cops on nursing mother

Security guards at a Michigan store tell a woman that feeding her baby in public is illegal

While Mary Martinez was shopping in a Target store in Harper Woods, Mich., recently, her 4-week-old baby got hungry. And because some people still haven’t gotten it through their heads that women often use their own breasts to feed hungry babies, a security guard who saw her doing just that told her she had to leave because she was breaking the law. Which she was not. Target mistake No. 1.

When Martinez and her husband, Jose — a police officer who knew full well his wife wasn’t doing anything illegal — refused to leave, the security guard called the cops. Target mistake No. 2. Although the local officers who arrived confirmed that it is not against the law to breast-feed in public in Harper Woods, Mary Martinez says she felt humiliated and forced out of the store anyway. “Two security guards, the manager or team leader, two officers, they just made a spectacle and a scene. I feel like I can’t go to that specific Target anymore.”

Now, Target mistakes 1 and 2 can be written off as the poor judgment of individual employees, but 3 is the real eye-popper: When contacted by Detroit’s Fox affiliate, Target’s corporate headquarters said that breast-feeding is allowed in their stores, but “This specific situation escalated to a point where we were concerned for the safety of our guests, so law enforcement was called.” Are you kidding me? How on earth does feeding a baby “escalate” to a safety issue for other customers? Target’s corporate spokesperson does understand that when you give a quote to a media outlet, other people will end up hearing it, right? And also that words mean things?

Full Story Broadsheet – Salon.com.