Parliamentary maneuver: Breastfeeding while legislating

As near as the world has been able to figure out since this video started racing around the InterTubes, Larissa Waters — a member of Parliament in Australia — is the first woman to breastfeed her baby while making a parliamentary motion on Thursday.

The chamber’s ban on breastfeeding was lifted last year.

It appears that it did not threaten democracy in Australia.

It did, predictably, threaten the heck out of some men.

“Breastfeeding during work hours (particularly as an elected representative) shouldn’t be considered revolutionary enough to have news articles devoted to pondering its significance, but here we are,” Sydney Morning Herald columnist Clementine Ford writes today. “The sanctimommies were in particularly fine form, banging on about the need to have a ‘quiet space’ for mother and baby to ‘bond’. Christ, have any of them ever breastfed a newborn baby? There’s only so many times you can bond during a day where breastfeeding will take up at least a third of it.”