Letter to Barbara Harris of C.R.A.C.K (aka Project Prevention)

July 30, 1999

Ms. Barbara Harris
C.R.A.C.K.
2601 West Ball Road
Suite 205
Anaheim, CA 92804

Dear Ms. Harris:

As an international body of women who work in the areas of social justice, reproductive freedom, immigration and analyses that expose methods of population control, your organization and its activities have been brought to our attention.

We are deeply concerned with the increasing erosion of women’s health and rights. We also are troubled with the covert agenda CRACK has used to seemingly rid society of the reproductive capabilities of substance users.

There are many fallacies in the analysis you present regarding the “voluntary” nature of cash incentive-based sterilization and birth control. An incentive-based program that targets vulnerable populations is inherently coercive. CRACK’s approach is based in eugenic thinking, which emphasizes that society’s “undesirables” should not have the ability to procreate. Although you have reiterated that, “CRACK is about the children and not the women,” we would argue that sterilizing women, or requiring dangerous, problematic, long-term birth control, is fundamentally about women.

In addition to referring women who are immuno-compromised via their substance abuse to “services” of sterilization or problematic hormonal methods, you say nothing of the intersection of substance abuse and HIV exposure, seemingly having ignored the issue altogether. With approximately 890,000 people in the US affected by HIV, 20% of those infected are women. A major sub-set of those infected are Black and Latina women. An increasing number of HIV positive women have been infected through sexual transmission. By promoting birth control methods that do not protect against sexually transmitted diseases, CRACK’s activities may actually increase a woman’s risk of contracting HIV or other STDs.

It is a well-established fact that substance abuse transcends socio-economic status. Unfortunately, many misinformed agencies have perpetuated myths that substance abuse is a problem of poor, urban women and men. This is especially true with respect to crack cocaine. This myth reinforces negative images of marginalized communities while the public visualizes the ubiquitous “crack- head” mischievously circling so-called inner-city neighborhoods. By using the term “crack” as the title of your organization, you perpetuate the idea that substance abusers, primarily crack users, are located amongst women who are socially deprived. However, according to the Sentencing Project, a Washington, DC based policy group, 2/3 of all crack users are White or non-Black Hispanics. However, it is Blacks who represent the majority of arrests for trafficking and distribution of the substance.

We strongly believe that you have crossed a fine ethical line by offering to pay women to relinquish their fundamental right to have children. The ideas you promulgate are based on the assumptions that 1) women who are addicted to substances will be perpetually addicted; 2) treatment options for women who are addicted are not worthy of being pursued and; 3) drug addicted women are expendable. CRACK’s program revives the social engineering and eugenic practices of the early twentieth century. Why not examine some of the socio-political factors that have driven women to substance use? Why not support the creation of options that empower women? Why not help women find health care that will supply them with HIV cocktail options that will cut maternal-fetal transmission risk to 1%? Why not find ways to make women whole instead of violating their most basic reproductive freedom?

In sum, we feel that the activities and policies of CRACK infringe upon the fundamental human rights of the most marginalized members of society. It is our feeling that you are in violation of these rights, and therefore we have the responsibility to expose your work and to educate the public about your quasi-sentimental concern for the children of these women. Despite people’s negative feelings about substance abuse and pregnancy, women still are human beings and must be treated as such. The complex web of substance abuse that entangles women is not to be taken lightly. We need to understand that gender inequities have perpetuated conditions of poverty, racism, and violence, limiting the opportunities of many of the women you target. Unless your organization is willing to work within the framework of social justice and to reject population control methods, you probably should not be acting on behalf of anyone, let alone children.

On Behalf of the Committee on Women, Population and the Environment (CWPE),
April J. Taylor, Boston, MA
Jennifer Yanco, Boston, MA
Toni Bond, Chicago, IL
Sarah Bortt, Chicago, IL
Rajani Bhatia, Baltimore, MD