As a general media rule, if you have to assure viewers that you're not a pedophile then you've already lost the debate.
But this is exactly what happened when Fox News contributor Dr. Keith Ablow appeared on Fox & Friends Tuesday to object to a baby doll that helps children learn about breastfeeding.
"It's beyond ridiculous," Ablow told Fox News' Alisyn Camerota. "It's destructive. Little girls aren't even aware how their secondary sexual characteristics will develop, let alone imitating how they'll be used after childbirth. This is another way of turning little girls into adults. It blurs the boundary between children and adults in society. It contributes to the sexualization of children and it makes them targets of assailants, frankly, because it blurs that boundary. It's a terrible, terrible idea."
"I'm going to have to respectfully disagree," parenting expert Jessica Gottlieb told Ablow. "I'm not sure that if you see a little girl as her breasts being sexual that that doesn't reflect more on you than on what breasts are."
"I assure you I'm not a pedophile at all," Ablow objected.
"Dr. Ablow, I think she raises a great point," Camerota noted. "Why is it sexual? Why isn't it just natural?"
"She doesn't raise a good point at all. How about this? How about we have little girls three and four have an OB/GYN suite where they deliver their babies? That's a good idea. That way we can further blur the boundaries so that everybody out there no longer thinks there's any particular difference between a little child and an adult woman. The fact is that little girls don't have breasts that can breastfeed," Ablow explained.
This month alone, Ablow has proclaimed that President Barack Obama pursues a "communist manifesto" and offered and psychological profile of Media Matters' David Brock.
