Appeals court rebukes judge for breastfeeding ban on mom who got a tattoo, overturns order
An Australian judge is under fire for ordering a mother to stop breastfeeding her 11-month-old child because she got a tattoo.
An appeals court on Friday unanimously overturned the order issued by Federal Circuit Judge Matthew Myers in the Newcastle case. The full family court also rebuked Myers for issuing the order against the unidentified woman, apparently based solely on the judge’s own Internet research about the risk of HIV virus infection from tattoos, the Sydney Morning Herald reports.
There has been only one prior order in the country banning a mother from breastfeeding, the appeals court said, and that involved an order, upheld in 1999 by the New South Wales Supreme Court, that said a woman who was HIV positive could not breastfeed her child. This case is different because the mother tested negative for exposure to the virus.
