The letter-writer CANNOT breastfeed because of a prior surgery. She did not ask for advice about breastfeeding. She asked for advice about dealing with strangers who assume she's not breastfeeding by choice and criticize her.

I sympathize with the letter-writer. I had similar experiences. I'd had breast cancer so my own surgery was more radical, if you will pardon the pun. I did not feel that every pro-breastfeeding busybody had a right to my medical history, but THEY seemed to think that they had the right to tell me what to do with tissue that had in fact been removed from my body 7 years before I became a mother.