U.S. Senator Duckworth has long been an advocate of breastfeeding accommodations, including introducing legislation that requires all medium and large airports to offer a lactation room for mothers. But when the Illinois Democrat became the first Senator to give birth in office, this April, that activism was pushed to the next level as she fought to get long-standing congressional rules against allowing a child on the Senate floor overturned to allow her to nurse her newborn. Since then, Duckworth has cast votes and attended protests with her baby girl tucked to her chest, and cites her own breastfeeding experience as a reason she opposed immigration policies that removed infants and toddlers from their mothers’ arms when they crossed the border to seek asylum. Between her legislation and personal example, breastfeeding accommodations for mothers are now a health and public-policy discussion on a national scale. —Robin Marty
Erin Schaff—The New York Times/Redux