Michigan takes on Breastfeeding

The State of Michigan has launched a series of ads aimed at teaching women the value of breastfeeding their infants. There's nothing wrong with breastfeeding, of course, it being completely natural. As to the advantages which Michigan says that the practice offers, moms losing weight more quickly or that it makes babies smarter, for example, they may well be true. Ultimately, however, that seems like ideas which ought to concern the mother more directly that it may concern the government. The real question becomes, why are taxpayer dollars being spent on such advertising?

A Michigan Department of Community Health spokesperson, Julie Lothamer, says that while the decision to breastfeed is personal, she "... just (doesn't) want anyone to ever say, 'No one ever told me' " about the health benefits. Okay; but again, should the State be the one doing the telling? It seems a stretch to believe that in this day and age pregnant women have no idea, or are not informed at some point during the course of their pregnancy, that breastfeeding is a good idea.

Yet even accepting that rationale begs the question of whether taxpayers should be the ones making the idea known. If it is such a private choice, why is Lansing involved at all?

Perhaps because it would save the state on the cost of formula for welfare mothers? That option appears to be the more plausible one: and the State could defend it on the grounds that it is actually looking out for the ones truly footing the bill. It might save us a bit of that taxpayer green, your taxpayer green, in the long run. Yet if that is the case it actually makes the campaign look rather callous: we aren't truly concerned with you or your baby's health. We want to save a few bucks.

Either way you see it, the real bottom line is that the government shouldn't be addressing the issue at all. Spending our taxes on matters which are indeed no one else's business is wrong, even if you are willing to argue that the state has the right to influence the decisions of mothers essentially under its care. That isn't compassion; that's actually another form of the nanny state in a more subtle yet still dangerous approach. It is the government trying to control people more than help them. It teaches nothing save that we need the government involved in more areas of our lives. That does not promote freedom nor responsibility. It only keeps us more under wing.