By Daniel Payne
CNA Staff, Nov 14, 2024 / 15:10 pm
Two leaders of a major global mother’s breastfeeding support group, including one of the organization’s founders, have resigned amid the group’s decision to allow males to participate in meetings that have historically been open only to mothers.
The international board of La Leche League recently directed all British affiliates to begin accommodating men who believe they are women.
La Leche League was founded in Illinois in 1956 by Marian Tompson and six other women to offer mother-to-mother breastfeeding support, first in the U.S. and then beyond. At the time in the United States, the vast majority of babies were bottle-fed, with many medical experts urging mothers away from breastfeeding in favor of formulas.
Tompson, 94, announced this week that she was resigning from the group’s board of directors after accusing the organization of becoming “a travesty of my original intent.”
Tompson said the group was launched with the aim of “supporting biological women who want to give their babies the best start in life by breastfeeding them.”
Yet the group’s aim has shifted, she said, “to include men who, for whatever reason, want to have the experience of breastfeeding.”
LGBT advocates have argued that men who believe they are women are capable of breastfeeding babies by way of taking synthetic hormones and inducing lactation via nipple stimulation. Tompson in her resignation noted that there has been “no careful long-term research on male lactation and how that may affect the baby.”
“This shift from following the norms of nature, which is the core of mothering through breastfeeding, to indulging the fantasies of adults, is destroying our organization,” Tompson wrote.
She said she had attempted to change the group’s focus as one of its board members but that “it has become clear that there is nothing I can do to change this trajectory by staying involved.”
“Still, I leave the door open to come back when La Leche League returns to its original mission and purpose,” she said.
Also this week, Scottish breastfeeding advocate Miriam Main announced that she was leaving La Leche League after serving for several years as a lactation counselor and on the council of directors of the league’s Great Britain affiliate.
Main said her concerns began when she noticed changes being made to official group literature, such as the term “mother” being replaced with “parent” and “breastfeed” being replaced with “chestfeed.”
A “group of zealots from within the organization” propelled further changes, she said, including orders that the group would have to begin accepting “men who wished to breastfeed” into support groups.
Critics of the decision were “told we were transphobic, and we were compared to racists and Nazis” by organization leaders, Main said. A petition to the La Leche League International Board eventually led to an order for all affiliates in Great Britain to offer breastfeeding support “to all nursing parents, regardless of their gender identity or sex.”
The organization’s leaders have “shown that theoretical male lactation trumps the needs of real women living in the U.K.,” Main said.
“The grief I feel at losing LLL from my life is huge,” Main said, urging remaining leaders at the organization to “listen to their hearts and decide what to do next.”
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Neither Main nor Tompson responded to requests for comment on their respective departures.
In her book “Breastfeeding and Catholic Motherhood,” author Sheila Kippley argues that breastfeeding is “an integral part of the vocation of Christian motherhood.”
“God’s breastfeeding plan is simple,” Kippley writes. “Yet this simple plan can have far-reaching effects upon the human race, offering numerous benefits for the baby, for the mother, and for society.”
“God’s plan is indeed good, and it is therefore good for us to try to follow it,” she says.
Pope Francis, meanwhile, has several times spoken out in favor of breastfeeding, for instance telling mothers in the Sistine Chapel in 2017: “You mothers, go ahead and breastfeed, without fear. Just like the Virgin Mary nursed Jesus.”
