Fact check: Post falsely attributes breastfeeding quote to Amy Coney Barrett
The claim: Judge Amy Coney Barrett equated breastfeeding to child molestation
In her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee this week, Judge Amy Coney Barrett — President Donald Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court — has had her share of quotable moments.
On Tuesday, for example, she declared that judges cannot “walk in like a royal queen and impose their will on the world,” per CNBC.
A post on Facebook, though, attempts to attribute a shocking quote about breastfeeding to the nominee, who is a devout Catholic.
The quote appears to be a screenshot of a comment on the site, cropped to remove the name of the user who wrote the comment and replaced with the name, “Amy Barrett.”
“Not because feeding your child is rape, but because there are otherwise ways to feed your child, even with breast milk. It’s called a bottle, and yes I do have children. I have a six month old that is fed breast milk from a bottle, not directly from the breast,” the comment reads. “If you force your child to suck your nipples, you are molesting YOUR child. Making an infant suck on your breasts is a sexual act and you should be in prison for CHILD MOLESTATION.”
The user behind the post — who claims in his caption that the words came “from the mouth of the woman they are wanting as a Supreme Court justice” — did not respond to a request from USA TODAY for comment.
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Comment came from Reddit forum on ‘crazy parents’ and is unrelated to Barrett
Unsurprisingly, Barrett — a mother of seven children, aged 8 to 19, per The 19th — is not the source of the absurd quote about breastfeeding.
Searches for the quote lead to an article on Yahoo! Money, headlined “No, QAnon, Parents Who Breastfeed Should Not ‘Be in Prison For Child Molestation.’”
Author Sabrina Rojas Weiss attributes the quote to a forum on Reddit, Insaneparents.
Insaneparents bills itself as “a weird place where you can post those crazy parents who post in those woo-woo anti-vax groups on facebook and do things harmful (directly and indirectly) to their children.”
A screenshot of the quote was posted in the forum last week. Though the name of the individual who posted it has been crossed out, it begins with a J and bears no resemblance to Amy Coney Barrett.
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Our rating: False
Based on our research, the claim that Judge Amy Coney Barrett equated breastfeeding to child molestation is FALSE. The quote came from a forum on Reddit, where the name of the individual who posted it is crossed out but clearly is not Barrett.
Our fact-check sources:
- CNBC, Oct. 13, Here are the top moments and highlights so far from Day 2 of Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation hearings
- The 19th, Oct. 7, Trump’s Amy Coney Barrett pick for Supreme Court might backfire, analysts say
- Yahoo! Money, Oct. 5, No, QAnon, Parents Who Breastfeed Should Not ‘Be in Prison For Child Molestation’
- Reddit, Insaneparents
- Reddit, Insaneparents, Breast feeding
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