Mar 09
12
Ohio Woman Charged with Breast Feeding While Driving
As most of you know, at least in most states, it is illegal to even have an infant out of a car seat when driving, let alone to be breast feeding a baby, with not seat belt and means of protection if involved in an accident, in a moving vehicle. These laws are put in place to protect babies from careless parents, but sometimes it may be necessary for parents to feed their children a bottle or by breast, but certainly this is not acceptable while that person is driving, that’s just going too far.
One mother did just that, but to make matters worse, as she was breast feeding her baby, she was also driving and talking on a cell phone. Apparently another concerned motorist saw her doing both of these risky activities and called the police on her. The mother, of course said that her baby was hungry and she couldn’t let the baby go without feeding, but really this was quite a boneheaded move if you ask me. It makes it all that much worse that she was also on a cell phone at the same time, which can be a sidetracking activity in and of itself while driving – the reason it has been banned unless it’s using a hands free device in more and more states.
The woman, who is 39 years old, was actually charged with child endangerment and the police department who was informed of her mishandling of the child wanted to make it clear that the issue was not that she was breastfeeding in public, but that she had an infant in her lap while driving, which is illegal because of the seatbelt and car seat laws that are designed to protect children who are too young to protect themselves.
The mother could be faced with midemeanor charges and could also be subjected to a stiff fine for this considerable faux pas. Hopefully at least she has learned that you really can’t endanger the life of a child like that without consequence. This is definitely one case where I say it’s good to have protective laws in place. I’m sure she really loves her child, it’s just that from time to time people don’t think, it doesn’t mean you’re a bad person, she just probably didn’t see the forest for the trees in this case and was just looking at it as a way to get her baby what it needed at the time.
