A second explanation is the God-like status of health in the secular West. As G. K. Chesterton foretold a hundred years ago, when people stop believing in God, they don't believe in nothing, they believe in anything. When people stop worshipping God, they begin worshipping many gods. Health, for example. In the name of Health, condoms are given out to high school students. In the name of Health, many parents would rather their teenager cheat on tests than smoke. And in the name of Health, women are pressured into breast-feeding.
The third explanation is the other major argument for breast-feeding -- the mother will bond better with her child.
This argument is even more remarkable than the health argument. At the least the health argument is rational, even if wildly overstated.
Is there a shred of evidence that adoptive mothers bond less with their children? Do women who cannot breast-feed bond less well with their child? Do women who breast-feed one child and bottle-feed the other love the breast-fed child more? Are men incapable of equal love of their children?
The bonding argument is also a bit scary. Are women who believe it saying that without breast-feeding, they would not have been capable of sufficiently bonding with and loving their child?
And if breast-feeding is indispensable to optimum bonding, why not breast-feed for a few years? Isn't more bonding better?
Many fine women and men are passionate about this subject. But the current war against bottle-feeding, which is a thoroughly wonderful gift of modern science, is just another sign of our morally confused secular world. Instead of fighting real evils, too many men and women -- and governments -- devote much of their lives to fighting trivia such as bottle-feeding and secondhand smoke.