But why are we to assume that business cannot be done while a mother holds an infant? Let alone that we should not assume that Duckworth wouldn’t know better than to remove her daughter from the floor of the Senate if she became a disruption. (And it wouldn’t be a bad thing for newborns to start coming to shareholder meetings, if their mothers were also present.)

Making it easier for women to care for their children without causing unnecessary stress and burden on either is an issue that unites both pro-life, pro-family conservatives and pro-women’s rights progressives — or it should, at least.

Babies need their mothers, and that need doesn’t disappear because a mother has a job to do. They need them for nourishment, and they need them for emotional comfort. There are studies that show increased stress hormone levels in babies separated from their mothers in both monkeys and humans. It makes perfect evolutionary sense: If mammal babies rely on their mothers for physical safety and nutrition, they experience stress if they are separated.