Breastfeed attempt column draws ire
The Globe and Mail removed a piece from its website in which a longtime columnist claimed she once attempted to breastfeed the infant child of Conservative leadership candidate Michael Chong without his or his wife’s consent, and while she was not lactating.
In her column, titled “The joy ( and politics) of breastfeeding someone else’s baby,” Leah McLaren, 41, said the incident occurred at a Toronto house party when she was “about 25 and did not have a baby — or even a boyfriend.”
McLaren goes on to say that, after wandering upstairs in search of a washroom, she spotted an infant boy in a room, sat up in a portable carseat, and held him in her arms.
After the child sucked on her finger, McLaren said she realized “what he wanted ... The only problem was, I had no milk. But would it be so bad, I wondered, if I just tried it out — just for a minute — just to see what it felt like?”
McLaren then claims that, as she began to undo her blouse, Chong walked in, took the child and politely bade her farewell without knowing what had happened.
“I realize now that it was wrong and rude and frankly a bit weird of me to think I could breastfeed a stranger’s baby just for kicks,” wrote McLaren.
“I hate to t hink what would have happened if Mr. Chong — or worse, his wife — had walked in while I was in the act.”
Chong confirmed the incident happened more than a decade ago. “It was odd, no doubt, but not of any real consequence,” he said in a statement to the Post.
“I entered this race to discuss important challenges facing Canada. I am happy to discuss those. But I won’t be making any further comment on this.”
The column was deleted from the Globe’s website some time after it was published March 22.
It ignited a firestorm online Sunday evening after several users on Twitter posted links to websites where it had been preserved.