Sunny Hostin Blames Baby Formula Shortage On Lack of Federal Paid Maternity Leave

The View co-host Sunny Hostin blamed the nationwide baby formula shortage on the absence of federal paid maternity leave.

Hostin said:

I think the fault lies in the fact that we have terrible maternity leave because a lot of women would love to be able to stay home and breastfeed their children and take care of their children, and the fact of the matter is we can’t do that because we have very limited maternity leave, and we have to immediately go back to work to take care of our families and feed our families, and the government doesn’t support us in that, and I think that’s where the problem is.

I worked for the government and right after I had my son, I had to borrow leave from other federal prosecutors so that I could stay home a little while longer, and I had just had a c-section. It was absolutely ridiculous. It hasn’t changed 20 years later.

With all due respect to Hostin, that take has a shortage of facts.

The massive lack of baby formula – which by the way liberal Twitter was denying was even a problem until they realized it couldn’t be hidden – is a supply chain issue, exacerbated by the recall of formula from one of the country’s major providers.

Hostin is blaming high demand for short supply, but the entire purpose of an efficient supply chain is to handle high demand. This is a big country. There are many babies.

Even if federal paid maternity leave were enacted with a sufficient timeline for birthing and new mothers, it wouldn’t solve the baby formula shortage or prevent future ones. The Biden administration could allow for the importation of baby formula from abroad that qualify under FDA standards if they wanted to really address the current lack of supply. They could even invoke the Defense Production Act to speed up production of baby formula inside the United States.

The View isn’t a major source of policy prescriptions, certainly. But Hostin’s commentary attempting to blame this major problem that literally affects women and children the most on some political campaign talking point is just blatant partisanship. It’s so off the mark it’s almost disinformation.

Watch above, via ABC.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.