Posted on 08/01/2003 8:57:20 AM PDT by bedolido
Actor's bare breast too much for health ministry 01 August 2003
The Health Ministry has pulled the plug on a World Breastfeeding Week promotion featuring the bare breast of actor Michael Hurst.
Acting on the ministry's directive, Auckland-based Women's Health Action yesterday asked the Manawatu Standard newspaper not to use the image of Hurst, shirt unbuttoned, with a baby to his breast.
The image invites people to consider whether it would be easier to breastfeed at work if men had to do it.
Returning to work is one of the key reasons women give for stopping breastfeeding, according to a recent Equal Employment Opportunities Trust-funded study.
Women's Health Action director Jo Fitzpatrick said she understood the ministry considered the Hurst image too controversial and that New Zealanders weren't ready for it.
"So we have withdrawn our permission for you to print it," she said.
Hurst's Xena co-star Lucy Lawless fronted last year's breastfeeding campaign and her picture appears in the corner of what was to have been this year's publicity shot.
The ministry has partly funded the preparation of publicity material for World Breastfeeding Week, an international awareness promotion starting today.
The Hurst picture was also to have been part of an information pack Women's Health Action planned to send to employers on how to make their workplaces more welcoming for breastfeeding staff.
A poster of a man pretending to suckle a baby has upset New Zealand Health Ministry officials so much they have demanded it be withdrawn, it was reported here. The poster to promote World Breastfeeding Week features local actor Michael Hurst, who stars in the Hercules television series, with his business shirt unbuttoned and clutching a baby to his chest.
Director-General of Health Dr. Karen Poutasi said Friday in a statement that the ministry "did not believe it conveys fully the message that there are a number of ways employers can support one of the most natural things a mother can do, which is breastfeed her child".
The poster was designed by Auckland-based Women's Health Action to promote breastfeeding at work.
The group's director Jo Fitzpatrick said she understood the ministry considered the image too controversial and that New Zealanders weren't ready for it.
But other members of the group said they were mystified at the government reaction as they had tested the image on a focus group which included men from all types of workplaces.
"We don't know why it's been a problem. We're a little confused ourselves," the group's breastfeeding advocate Louise James told AFP.
If you want on the new list, FReepmail me. This IS a high-volume PING list...
The picture can also be used in the NAMBLA info pack (or the New ZEMBLA info pack)....
Strange... let's see... it's okay for a person to sell their body to someone for whatever... but dont show a man breast-feeding?
Evil grows in the dark... I see no light in their thinking.
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