Summary for Congressional bill HR 2530:

Requires the largest ~70 airports to provide a private location past security for traveling moms to breastfeed.

Must not be located in a restroom.

In Depth:

Similar legislation already passed in California & Illinois.

This only applies to large and medium-sized hubs, which comprise about the 70 largest airports.

Other requirements on location: accessible to the disabled, can be locked & includes a place to sit, a table and an electrical outlet.

Grant for this improvement must be requested within 2 years.

Vote Yes if you believe:

Airports are a unique public space, where travelers don’t have as much control over their time, so nursing areas should be provided. #NursingMoms

Nursing moms should have access to areas away from the public eye. #NursingMoms #PublicBreastFeeding

Restrooms are not a good place to breastfeed. #NursingMoms #Hygiene

Vote No if you believe:

Public breast-feeding is allowed. #PublicBreastFeeding

Government should not require airports to complete such non-essential infrastructure projects. #RegulatoryBurden

Congress.gov link to HR 2530

(This is the 1st draft of the summary for a bill in Polinav. Summary & In-Depth is non-partisan & Vote yes/no reasons are fact-checked. if you think something is wrong,should be added or deleted, comment below!)

I don’t particularly like when they say things like “would you want to eat in the bathroom?” No, I don’t want to do that. It is a valid point, though. Public breast-feeding is legally allowed, but not everyone is comfortable doing so in public. This brings about a valid privacy concern.

So, the other argument is about the additional infrastructure cost. I would say that these private lactating areas should be a part of the design of new additions, new airports, or major renovations; with existing infrastructure, it could be as simple as pods that are peppered throughout the terminals. In my mind, it’s just not a burdensome requirement and a very common sense type of addition.

I thought an interesting point that was brought about was that some airports in developing countries also don’t provide such stations because women in their countries have much more generous maternity leaves, which allows for their mothers to conduct much of this in the privacy of their homes.

I would want my representatives to vote YES on this bill!