The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #132894   Message #3009895
Posted By: Emma B
18-Oct-10 - 12:28 PM
Thread Name: BS: A snip at £200? (sterilizing addicts)
Subject: RE: BS: A snip at £200?
For more information about Poject Prevention, also known as C.R.A.C.K. its history and its founder Barbara Harris, whose total disregard for the women it targets is evidenced in her statement:

"We don't allow dogs to breed. We spay them. We neuter them. We try to keep them from having unwanted puppies, and yet these women are literally having litters of children."

see this lengthy but informative article in the Journal of Law in Society

'Much of what C.R.A.C.K. says about its clients is untrue or unsupported. Instead of research, legitimate data and honest inquiries, C.R.A.C.K. too often presents anecdotes, fasle information and horrific images of bad women who not only do not deserve to have children but do not deserve any form of compassion or support'
i.e. a 'dehumanizing discourse'

Their flyer
"Don't let a pregnancy ruin your drug habit" is consistent with an organization that has no concern whatsoever with the welfare of mothers
In fact the organization only promotes birth control methods that do not prevent HIV or sexually transmitted diseases and 'may pose significant health risks compared to other methods'

Barbara Harris's own story involves a woman who she claims had eight children and is the centrepiece of her public presentations
Supporters of her programme assert that 'the typical drug user has seven children' so for the cost of $200 "Countless births are avoided"

However strudies have shown this to be a fallacy, low income women in America with a publicly identified drug problem had an average of 2-3 children

The media generated image of the 'typical' female addict as probably young, poor, black, urban, on welfare the mother of many children and addicted to crack moreover did not match the more likely 30 something. divorced high school graduate on public assistance, the mother of two or three children and addicted to alcohol and one other drug

Preventing harm to children or preventing some women from having children?

read the article and decide.....