women have always had the "right" to breastfeed in public

It's a bad situation when we have to legislate in order to give women the "right" to breast-feed in public - or, as in the proposed law, criminalise those who try to stop them.

However, if you think it's legislative overkill and you can't understand the need for the government to introduce yet another law concerning public conduct, dip lightly into the Daily Mail's comment section. These are from today's coverage, though you can find the same set of objections whenever the Mail, Scotsman or Express raises the issue.

For ease of reading, I've tried to tag the comments with their appropriate taxonomy.

1. Women who breastfeed in public are bad mothers who don't know their place / Breasts are for looking, not feeding

Why oh why would anyone want to get their breast out in public, and why oh why should anyone be subjected to seeing a woman's breast flopping out?

Get real women, if you think this is equal rights then you are off the planet. If you want to feed your children, then think before you go out - common sense. Babies are fine in their right place, but not all of us want them shoved in OUR face.

2. Women who breastfeed in public are slatterns who deserve to be stared at / Breastfeeding in public is like pissing in the street

Yet more barmy bonkers political correctness. What will the cost of this burgeoning industry be to business? It is just an extention of the government's intrusive hands into business. Added to which, should we now allow people to urinate in public? Of course not.

Sensible, decent women will surely want to bare their breasts for this in private, not in front of an office full of their colleagues. It is bad manners and they can hardly complain if people gawp at them.

3. "It is madness / I have gone mad."

An unnecessary assertion of "feminism" and another nail in the coffin of propriety by this PC crazed government.

and

While I am paying £50 for a meal I have to have the women next to me shoving her breast into the mouth a crying child - have they all gone mad?

To be completely clear, women have not "won the right" to breastfeed in public; they've always had that right. This law is about acquiring a layer of legal protection from the kind of people quoted above.