Operation Hope/get Paid Family Leave
The conversation has to be framed as “Babies’Rights”
We love babies. We do. The Anti Choice Folks only love babies prior to birth.
We counter their rhetoric: “We Love Babies”.
If we don’t use this framing we can be easily defamed as “lazy moms (dads)” who don’t want to go to work AND want to get paid”.
Anybody who has taken care of a newborn knows that it’s harder than any other job.
HAS ANYBODY ASKED BABIES IF THEY WANT THEIR MOM/DAD HOME? Of course they want that.
Breastfeeding is recognized as a basic HUMAN RIGHT for mother and child. Breastfeeding while being employed outside the home is very difficult, nearly impossible (depending on the employment situation).
Hit those so called “Conservatives” where it hurts: You people apparently HATE babies.
It’s a known fact that an early secure parent/child bond gives kids the best chances to be resilient and not slide into mental illness, substance abuse and crime.
I breastfed both my sons. I pumped and breastfed my first son while a corporate sales/mgmt exec and it was weird pumping daily in the conference room as no way was I going to do such in a bathroom!
Breast is proven best and our society is not supporting women with jobshare or family leave long enough for the benefit of mother, baby and the entire family! Getting up in the middle of the night attending to a baby and pumping excess milk is wonderful but exhausting. Happy families are parents with flex jobs to be able to raise babies and/siblings until at least 1yr old without daycare or subsidized PT infant daycare. Corporate greed is stressing the family as is the lack of FT & PT daycare. Women want to be equal but we are different than men and shouldn’t be penalized for birthing & caring for our children. Babies deserve a parent to care for them vs FT daycare that just can’t provide the best care. As women we need to delineate between equal capability to do a job and accommodation to perform a natural function.
You’re on to something! Even though the majority of Americans are pro abortion, I think the term “babies” runs the risk of inviting an abortion related “whataboutism” debate, which can be distracting. Perhaps another word besides babies? Newborns? I don’t know. I might be overly concerned about the potential for distraction.
Also, its always better to frame an issue in terms of losing something because from a psychological standpoint, people have stronger feelings associated with a potential loss (called loss aversion bias). Without paid family leave, newborns LOSE precious time with parents, FOREVER. They can never get that time back.
born59 - THIS is a great idea! Get La Leche League to partner with activists to educate people about the benefits of breastfeeding. But how do we convince capitalist corporations to give new parents 12 wks paid time off? In the civilized nations that have paid parental leave, is it all paid by the gov’t or do employers have to kick in too?
I was getting La Leiche League support back when my son was little. While I am not a representative of the League my guess is ( I’m fairly certain), they want to keep out of political issues and rightfully so in order to be available for everybody.
However, they do emphasize the importance of early attachment parenting. But it’s actually fairly simple: babies want to be at their mother’s breast. To put young baby/child into an institution (daycare)……if the baby could speak, they would say: “ He’ll, no.” There is not a culture I can think of who does that. When babies get separated from their moms it almost always is because of economic need/hardship.
If every workplace had a childcare center integrated with contractually mandated breaks for workers to be with their young children… that would make things more humane. Many civilized countries do this. I think East Germany had it. My guess is that it was pure necessity because so many consumer goods were not available and I bet cow milk powder ( euphemism for “formula”) was not available.
Also: we’re just sitting there and taking it… REFUSE MAKING BABIES.
Maybe we should start calling babies a different name… one that would be more appealing to the right-wing politicians so maybe they will enact policies in favor of them. Let’s start calling them “fetuses”… that should work! If it doesn’t, we can try with something more risky, like “corporations”, or “donors”. That’ll work. 
We could extend to the rest of humans if it works?
Yeah the fact that they commodify language manipulation says everything about what they think of you.
That language manipulation and large scale dissemination of it through mainstream media is one of only reasons Americans are so polarized now. It’s been a multi generational assault. Glad TYT is fighting back, we definitely need more!