Breast-feeding in a time of war

From the Montreal Gazette

LISA FITTERMAN Freelance

Monday, April 21, 2003

What did the American male passenger think they were - weapons of mass distraction?

Apparently, yes.

Deborah Wolfe, a Canadian citizen who was just breast-feeding her son and changing his diaper while en route between Houston and Vancouver, says her "subversive" actions led to her being threatened with detainment, RCMP involvement and legal charges for terrorist action against a U.S. citizen in international airspace while on an American flight during a time of war.

Her story strains credulity, save that it's so outrageous, it's hard to imagine she could make this stuff up. It's Python-esque farce; funny, pathetic and much scarier than the experience of a woman who earlier this month was awarded $1,000 by the Quebec Human Rights Commission after a security guard kicked her out of a Montreal municipal courtroom for nursing her infant.

In an e-mail, Wolfe says it started during the final leg of a trip back to Vancouver from Florida, when a man seated near her on the Continental Airlines flight took offence to her nursing her 4-month-old son and complained.

Continental Airlines spokesman Rahsaan Johnson told me that the airline does not have a policy that prohibits breast-feeding on board. But Wolfe says a flight attendant told her that if someone - anyone - complains, the mothers are supposed to change diapers in the bathroom and nurse at the back of the plane. This has its own unpleasant connotations, never mind the fact that passengers must stay in their seats during takeoff, landing and turbulence.

Wolfe says she refused a flight attendant's offer of an airline blanket to hide herself because it hadn't been sealed and, given the SARS scare, she'd rather use her own things. Thus, unbeknownst to her, a "Level 1" crew complaint was filed.

When an announcement then came over the public address system stating that all mothers should change diapers in the plane's bathrooms, she decided to ignore it because she found the change table too high, right above the toilet and with nary a restraint to stop an infant from falling.

She says she explained all this to the flight attendant who came over for a second time, but the complaint, of which she was still unaware, was upgraded to Level 2.

Wolfe began to nurse the baby again, using her own bib and blanket. She says the man got out of his seat, walked over to hers and stood staring at her. She says she approached him afterward and twice asked if he had a problem with her feeding her son.

"He marched past me and to the very back of the cabin to talk to the flight attendant," she wrote. "He told her, 'This woman just assaulted me.' ... He then explained that the asking of two questions by a 'foreign national' in international airspace made him feel the victim of terror and as such he wanted to file an assault charge."

She says the flight attendants also began to call her and her travelling party "foreign nationals in international airspace on an international flight during a time of war." And she was informed both of the complaint and that it could be upgraded to a Level 3, which meant possible mandatory detainment by U.S. authorities for 24 hours, RCMP involvement and criminal charges for an act of war upon an American.

Give me a flipping break.

Johnson told me that Wolfe's version of the story is a lot different than that of the flight attendants and the man. He confirmed that she was issued a Level 1 complaint and threatened with Level 2 after she became "verbally aggressive with another customer on board while in the airplane's aisle." He says that a Level 2 complaint was never issued.

But know what? I don't care if Wolfe had a super-hissy, foot-stomping diva fit. She was only trying to care for her baby. As noted by Elisabeth Sterken, director of the Canadian division of the Infant Feeding Action Coalition, that is her inalienable right under both the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Canada is a signatory.

("Holy cow," Sterken said. "Doesn't this just fry you?")

In the end, Wolfe says things were resolved when she signed a document promising that she would neither break Continental's rules about such things, nor speak to American passengers. To echo Sterken: Holy cow. After all, the U.S. is the same country that brought us the cheesy search for America's hottest person, made the semi-pornographic Maxim magazine a runaway success and recently became home to the niche airline Hooters. Named for the (in)famous restaurant chain, each flight features two well-endowed girls in tight T-shirts who give a whole new meaning to the concept of twin-engine props - and empty calories.

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