The South Carolina House passed a bill Tuesday that would protect a woman's right to breast-feed her baby in public. It simply says that a woman may breast-feed her child in any location where the mother and baby are allowed to be. It also clarifies that breast-feeding cannot be considered indecent exposure.

The bill came about after several recent examples of mothers being asked to leave restaurants or stores because they were breast-feeding their babies.

It happened to Emily McCravy a few months ago when she was at the Richland County Public Library's main branch in downtown Columbia.

She says she was sunk down in a chair, nursing her daughter, Sadie, and no one was around. A security guard approached, and McCravy says the guard didn't even realize she was breast-feeding until the guard was a few feet away.

But once she realized what McCravy was doing, she told her she needed to move to the restroom. Sadie was finished, though, so they left.

"When somebody sits down to open their sandwich to eat, they don't go into a restroom and close the stall and hide and put a jacket over their face, do they? I mean, it's a wonderful thing. It's a natural thing. It's the best thing that a mother can do for her baby," McCravy says.

Padgett Lewis, spokesperson for the library, says its policy is not to say anything to a mother who's breast-feeding. If another patron were to complain, the library would try to accomodate the mother and baby by moving them to another part of the library or to a conference room, Lewis says.

Under the new bill, it wouldn't be an issue. "With our legislation, it allows a breast-feeding mother to be anywhere she would normally be allowed in public," says Rep. Chip Limehouse, R-Charleston, main sponsor of the bill.

When the bill came up in committee, fellow Charleston Republican Rep. John Graham Altman said lawmakers shouldn't be telling businesses what they should and should not allow. If a business wants to accomodate a breast-feeding mother by allowing her to use a dressing room, that should be the business owner's decision.

And if the business doesn't want to risk losing customers because a dressing room is occupied, then that's their decision, too.

Rep. Gloria Haskins, R-Greenville, also expressed concern about the rights of other parents who might not want their children to see a woman's exposed breast.

But both ultimately supported the bill, as did the entire House.

After a routine, final reading Wednesday it goes to the Senate.

Breast-feeding mother Melissa Senf of Lexington has several friends who've been asked to leave, or move to the restroom, in restaurants or stores. She's hoping the law will not only protect mothers, but make breast-feeding in public seem completely natural.

Studies show that breast-fed babies are healthier, have fewer ear infections, have higher IQs and are less likely to be obese later in life.

With five-month-old son Carter on her lap, she says, "If businesses and mothers cooperate, I don't think it'll be an issue. I honestly don't."