I agree that it is ridiculous that she was charged by I am not surprise with the way the teetotalers message dominating the conversation. There is no evidence at all that moderate drinking hurts fetuses yet most people believe a single drink will lead to FAS and the medical profession has done nothing but tacitly gone along with the program stating there that they don't know what the safe limit is so don't drink when they damn well know or should know by now that under 45 drinks in 30 days has shown 0 evidence of harm and there has never been a case of FAS or other development problems with moderate drinking. This belief has spread to breast milk. With this belief out there that a single can of beer will harm a child it is not a surprise that cops tried to protect the child even though it was under no threat.

That said, the responses are so far over the top to be parody.

whitenoise Yup. Given the totality of the circumstances, obviously the breastfeeding made these macho cops squeamish, so they arrested the mother to retaliate for her making them feel all icky.

How the hell do you jump to that conclusion based on either the BS story or the AP story? Taking the story at face value it appears that the cops where trying to do the right thing for the child based on the mistaken by widespread belief about alcohol and pregnant/nursing women. If the mother gave the kid a bottle of Jack Daniels she would and should be arrested and that is what the cops thought she was doing. Don't blame the cops blame the different professional groups that push this message.

Kristinab let's not forget the comment that she was charged also for the "chaotic nature of the situation"--a situation that involved her being abused. the abuser has not been charged, so she seems to be paying the price for:

I know this is a foreign concept but maybe just maybe there was no evidence of abuse or if there was abuse it was her that was abusing the boyfriend. Neither the BS nor the AP report gave enough information about these charges and based on the granted limited photo that the AP ran there was not obvious signs of abuse. These articles do not address the abuse claim other than to say the boy friend was not charged and she claimed abuse. For all we know they did an extensive investigation that would make the producers of CSI jealous.

And to the number of letters all but suggesting the Female Sentencing Discount. I agree charging her in this case is wrong, if she was endangering the child her ass should be in jail the same as any other criminal that harms someone defenseless.

Thank you Tracy for a common sense response based on reality especially coming after the Palin piece early on BS. It is actually really simple why the wife is hated on while the sons are not. The sons have not been on the news while the wife has. What Bernie did hurt not just individual people but causes and charities a lot of people either use or believe in and support. When thees causes have to cut back on the services they provide while you have a person complaining that a couple million is poverty and she needs more of the stolen money in a down economy of course you are going to be hated. She flaunted the graft in a reverse Robin Hood manor.

I wish I can say I am surprised by Steinem's comments but I am not. IIRC she has in the past defended drug dealer girl friends that they should be allowed to keep the money.