I was impressed with how well you handled the exchange, Penelope. Yes I have been watching, and it did not seem to me that your claims implied the ends that were assigned to you by Elizabeth Grace Matthew . The quantity argument is being used these days to justify all sorts of hedonistic procreative practices that are actively harmful. Having buried or miscarried several children, it is the losses that did the most to convince me that there are parts of mothering that are already laid out for me within the created order of things. I don't yet have articulate words of my own, but am coming away from all of this more convinced than ever that our young men and women, especially those within the deeply poverty stricken areas where I live, need to have the freedom, capability and appreciation that comes along with seeing adults accept the marvelous functions of our created bodies as a basic good. I have repeatedly seen, first hand, the ways in which middle class “fed is best” attitudes around breastfeeding have destroyed the core systems that made breastfeeding possible for many in poverty. The cultural damage has already been done on a massive scale here in the USA. With impoverished individuals often separated from any comprehension of breastfeeding or support for it or familiarity with it, they end up relying (without having access to consistent funds or even transportation!) on formula from the earliest days.

There are real, dark, grievous consequences to the cultural decision to dismiss a created function of femininity as an optional good. Thank you, Penelope , for taking a public stand in this regard.