
Matt C. Abbott
TIME's sexual exploitation of a child
By Matt C. Abbott
There is controversy surrounding a very recent TIME magazine cover featuring a woman breastfeeding her 3-year-old (or 4-year-old, depending on the report) son. The photo — which I won't be showing in this column — is deliberately provocative. I asked three pro-life, pro-family women for their comments on the controversy.
Dawn Eden, author of My Peace I Give You, wrote:
May 14, 2012
There is controversy surrounding a very recent TIME magazine cover featuring a woman breastfeeding her 3-year-old (or 4-year-old, depending on the report) son. The photo — which I won't be showing in this column — is deliberately provocative. I asked three pro-life, pro-family women for their comments on the controversy.
Dawn Eden, author of My Peace I Give You, wrote:


As TIME flashes its cover to millions of non-consenting adults and children — everywhere we turn — we all view the sexual exploitation of a little boy by his mom and TIME. We all 'view' child pornography now.
It was the New York Court of Appeals in 1981 that voted 5-2 to legalize child pornography. The court was clear: This included infants in 'actual or simulated sexual intercourse, deviate sexual intercourse, sexual bestiality, masturbation, sado-masochistic abuse, or lewd exhibition of the genitals' (reversed unanimously a year later by the Supreme Court as supporting child sexual abuse).
This is the same New York high court whose chief judge, Saul Wachtler (1985–1993), was convicted of stalking his lover and sending sexual materials to her teenage daughter. He was supported by the silence of his judicial colleagues. The court never issued a statement of condemnation for his abuse of authority, malfeasance in office, nor did they ever reexamine their rulings on sexual issues that may have been tainted by Wachtler's obvious hidden personal-sexual-criminal agenda.
TIME marketing executives know that their cover is sexually stimulating to millions of viewers, especially those who are part of the breastfeeding pornography niche. When the CEO of TIME, the photographers, the mother and others are arrested for mass child pornography distribution, I'm ready to testify in court. I'll provide TIME's decades-long advertorial collusion with Playboy and other such magazines, falsely presented as news to similarly normalize early pornography.
So, is there, somewhere still, a courageous U.S. attorney like Tom Dewey ready to clean up our modern pornography mafia? We sure need him!

I agree with many who think the TIME magazine cover was in bad taste simply because it exploits the innocence of the child and portrays the nursing mother in a most unglamorous way. The article was about 'attachment parenting,' and any woman who has breastfed her baby understands that this can be a 24-hour commitment. There are no studies that conclude that women who breast feed for up to three years or more are rewarded by children who are more 'attached' to her.
I have seen graphic early Church icons of the Virgin Mary as a nursing mother, and this devotion is still popular in many countries. In some primitive societies, mothers have been known to breast feed up to six years. The article was meant to stir up a conversation — one we have had since the beginning of human history.
The views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.
(See RenewAmerica's publishing standards.)