Milk Money: Race, Gender, and Breast Milk “Donation”

In 2014, the bioscience corporation Medolac Laboratories partnered with the Clinton Global Initiative, signing a Commitment to Action to increase breastfeeding rates among African American women. Medolac proposed to pay women in Detroit, Michigan, to donate their excess breast milk, arguing that women would breastfeed longer and earn enough money to delay reentry into the workforce. The program spurred resistance in the city of Detroit, where critics argued that it would exploit African American mothers without considering the historical and contemporary politics of breastfeeding and the commodification of black women’s reproductive labor. Through an analysis of the organization itself, and the resistance to the initiative in Detroit, this essay argues that Medolac’s proposed program reflects the continued exploitation of the reproductive labor of women of color in the United States and encourages an individualized, neoliberal focus on health at the expense of reproductive justice.