PHIL 112 Social Philosophy

Essay Assignment #2

 

 

Write a 4-5 page, typed, double-spaced, titled, stapled essay on one of the three topics below. Your grade will depend on three things: (1) how well you show a familiarity and understanding of the relevant material covered in class lecture and Feinberg’s text, (2) the strength of your positions and arguments, (3) your informative use of the Feinberg text (with page references), and (4) the clarity and quality of your written presentation. As to the latter, I will be looking for only the eight common mistakes as listed in the “BCC Philosophy Writing Guidelines” (found at www.bcc.ctc.edu/philosophy/). I will allow five such mistakes without grade penalty, but after that 0.1 GPA grade points will be deducted (up to a total deduction of 1.0 GPA grade points) for each mistake. Thus if you make 15 mistakes as outlined in the “Guidelines” and you would have received a 3.0 (B), then your grade would be reduced to a 2.0 (C). If you make three or fewer such mistakes, your grade will be raised 0.2 GPA grade points.

 

1. There are still many states in the USA that criminalize a woman for breastfeeding her baby in public. The act is considered in these states to be “indecent exposure.” It’s considered indecent due to the offense taken (supposedly) by observers. Pretend that you are a legislative assistant in Kansas working for a House Representative who needs to vote for or against House Bill 2284 (see the online newspaper article below), the bill presently addressing the issue of public breastfeeding. This Representative wants to know the reasons for and against making this activity fully and unambiguously legal in Kansas, and has asked you to write an essay on the matter. The Representative also wants to know what you would suggest be done given your analysis. Use the “balancing factors” Joel Feinberg presents in his chapter 8 of Offense to Others to provide such an analysis.

 

2. This question is probably the hardest of the three. On pages 35-37 of Offense to Others, Joel Feinberg argues that the reasonableness of the offense taken at a behavior should not be considered in determining whether legal intervention should be applied. What are his arguments? Are his arguments good or bad? Feinberg has been talking about public nudity in this chapter. How would this behavior fit in with his arguments?

 

3. The NFL censored the Rolling Stones’ lyrics at least twice during the recent Super Bowl halftime show (e.g., “You, you make a dead man ***”). Use Joel Feinberg’s analysis of obscenity in Offense to Others to argue for or against this censorship.

 

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KANSAS -- Aggie Nickelson was breast-feeding her baby in the restroom of a Hutchinson mall last October when a stranger approached her.

"I'm extremely offended by what you're doing," the woman told Nickelson, who was seated on a folding chair. "And it's illegal in the state of Kansas."

Nickelson, shocked and embarrassed, said nothing. She scooped up her 4-week-old son, whom she had covered with a blanket while he fed. Then she grabbed her diaper bag and hurried out of the bathroom.

"My biggest fear was that maybe this woman was right," said Nickelson, 23. "I didn't know what the laws were."

She later learned that nursing in public is legal. But a proposed state law, which would give a woman the right to breast-feed "in any place she has the right to be," would clarify that right. The law also would excuse nursing mothers from jury duty.

The proposal, House Bill 2284, will be presented to the Senate's Public Health and Welfare Committee today. A similar measure was approved by the House last year.

If the law passes, Kansas would join 34 other states -- including Colorado, Missouri and Oklahoma -- that protect a woman's right to breast-feed. The legislation exempts nursing mothers from anti-nudity or obscenity laws. Only six states specifically exempt breast-feeding mothers from serving on juries.

Supporters of such laws say they are necessary not only to encourage and protect nursing mothers, but to educate the public about the importance of breast-feeding.

"Women have a right to breast-feed and to meet their baby's needs wherever they are, period," said Brenda Bandy, professional liaison for La Leche League of Kansas, a breast-feeding support group.

Bandy, who teaches breast-feeding at a Fort Riley hospital, said many new mothers stop breast-feeding or decide not to breast-feed at all because of fears about nursing in public.

"I've had mothers say they feel like they can't go anywhere," she said. "They stay home, because they don't want to risk upsetting someone. And that's not right."

Nickelson, the Hutchinson mom, said the episode in the mall bathroom shook her confidence and prompted her to consider weaning her baby sooner than she had planned.

"I thought, 'Maybe I really can't go anywhere with him,' " she said. "'Maybe this is the way society feels, and I should just give him a bottle.' "

Before giving birth, Nickelson worked as an obstetrics technician at a Hutchinson hospital. Part of her job was explaining the benefits of breast-feeding to new moms and helping them learn to nurse.

"Of all people, I know how important this is," she said. "I guess maybe I was a little naive. I thought everyone accepted it, but that's not true."

Those who support the proposed law say the jury-duty exemption is needed to protect mothers and babies from an unexpected separation that could hurt the breast-feeding relationship.

Kelly Skinner, a Topeka mother, was called for jury duty when her daughter was an infant. She was excused, but summoned again about a year later.

Her daughter, then 16 months old, was still nursing and had never been fed with a bottle or separated from Skinner for more than a few hours at a time. Court officials told her she couldn't be excused again and would have to make her case before the judge.

A jury was chosen before Skinner had to appear. But she said the ordeal -- arranging for emergency child care, finding a breast pump just in case, arranging for a place to pump -- proved stressful.

"I'm a breast-feeding mom, and it's just not feasible for me," she said. "I don't think a lot of people really understand that relationship."

Last year, some lawmakers questioned whether business owners, such as restaurant managers, have the right to ask a woman to stop breast-feeding on private property. Others pushed to add the word "discreetly" to the law.

A version approved by the House said a woman "may discreetly breast-feed in any place she has a right to be." The change upset the bill's sponsors, who said the word was vague. They lobbied successfully to remove "discreetly" from the bill during Senate debate.

The Senate referred it to committee without a vote. It will take up the bill today.

Bandy, the La Leche League official, said increased awareness about the need for mothers to nurse in public bodes well for the proposed law.

"We just think the time is right," she said. "We need to make it clear that this is the right thing to do for mothers and babies and everyone."

Source: http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/living/13771104.htm