‘Nurse In' at Delta Airlines at JFK thwarted

When Long Island mother Ashley Clark pulled up to John F. Kennedy for the &#8220Nurse In” she had organized to protest the removal of a breastfeeding mother from a Delta plane six weeks ago, she knew immediately that the protest would not go as planned.
&#8220Delta actually had signage posted that only passengers with tickets were allowed through the doors,” Clark said of the planned protest on Tuesday, November 21. And because all &#8220Nurse In” participants at JFK were turned away at the door, Clark does not have an accurate count of people who showed up from the estimated 100 she believed would be in attendance.
Only a few weeks earlier, both passengers and visitors could enter the airport, Clark said, detailing how she had dropped off her mother for a flight and walked in the building.
&#8220I'm not sure if it was because of the travel and the holidays or because of the ‘Nurse In,' ” said Clark, an expectant mother who also has a two-and-a-half year old son, Clark Fisher.
At 36 cities nationwide, however, the &#8220Nurse Ins” did go as planned, bringing together between 400 and 500 parents and 500 children to protest the removal of 27-year-old Emily Gillette, and her husband and toddler on from a flight bound for LaGuardia Airport.
To date, the Gillette family of Sante Fe, AZ has said that they have not received a direct apology from the airline. However, the flight attendant who told Gillette to cover up with a blanket, allegedly saying, &#8220You are offending me,” to the young mother, and subsequently having the family removed from the plane, has been disciplined, a Delta spokesperson told the media.
In response, Gillette has filed a complaint with the Vermont Human Rights Commission, which handles discrimination allegations.
The incident and what critics - calling themselves &#8220lactivists” - have called a less than adequate response by the airline has also sparked a grassroots movement nationwide of mothers touting the benefits of breastfeeding and calling for civic rights protection for breast-feeding mothers and consistent policies on the airlines.
&#8220I think that nursing is a children's rights issue more than anything else,” said Desiree Halter, an Astoria mom who had planned to go to LaGuardia Airport for the &#8220Nurse In.” Halter's 15-month-old daughter, Anina, however, wasn't feeling well, so Halter did not attend.
When Anina was three months old, Halter took her on a plane, which didn't have a changing table. Halter said she asked the flight attendant if she could change her daughter on her lap, and was told to change the baby over the uncovered toilet and that the airline wouldn't permit a diaper change on Halter's lap. Thinking that the flight attendant meant that it simply was not advisable, Halter changed the baby on her lap and was told that if she did so a second time she would be charged with a felony and removed from the plane.
&#8220I want to support a mother who has been through something like that,” Halter said. &#8220What happened was that a two-year-old baby was thrown off a flight.”
When asked why she had organized the JFK &#8220Nurse In,” Clark said &#8220I was appalled that (A) they broke the law and (B) that the corporation didn't do anything until there was this public outrage,” referring to the Vermont law that permits mothers to nurse their children in public.
Clark said that oftentimes when a child is breastfeeding, both mother and child are soothed to the point of a blissful state, so an interruption, especially a harassing one, is more than unwelcome, she said.
&#8220All the nursing mothers that I know are outraged. It strikes a personal nerve because it could be any one of us,” she said.
&#8220I don't know what I would have done,” Clark said, when asked if she would have stood her ground. &#8220I have often wondered what would I say … I fly every month and so far, I have not had a single problem on an airline. That doesn't mean it doesn't happen.”