Project Prevention: A Backward Approach to Social Problems

"What was demanded as a "right" for the privileged came to be interpreted as a "duty" for the poor (Davis 1981:210)." This is what the course covered this year. The research before you is just a focus of this quote applied to one group. Advancement do not come without a price, but those who often pay are not a privileged group.

Project Prevention is just like any other eugenics movement only it curbs a population none of us want to breed. Crack mother is not an attractive title. Although it is a title that does not have to exist. The focus should not be on the reproductive abilities of these persons, but their addiction. The world has no use for crack heads, and they should be weaned out. Stopping the addiction, ending the flow of cocaine, and creating socio-economic opportunities for these afflicted persons.

Addicts are always found in poverty level groups, some would even argue that crack was designed for this population so they would implode in their communities. This will not be examined, but should be kept in mind. If Project Prevention is really focused on prevention then why not stop 'crack babies' at the source, the source of cocaine addiction is not found in sperm or eggs, poverty and availability.

Statement of Topic

Project Prevention is a non-profit group that pays 300$ cash for addicts to start birth control or become sterilized. The idea is to reward them for helping themselves. Barbara Harris is the founder of this program, she started it after adopting a child from a drug addicted mother. She will remind you of this any time a problematic question comes up. Harris wants to reduce all substance abuse births to zero. Her reasons are: tax cost,

reduce social problems, and remove burden of having children taken away. Looking
through the Project Prevention website something does not sit right. Everything sound legit and well thought out except for the fact that every page has a picture of happy children on it. The focus of my work is to uncover just what Project Prevention is preventing.

Background or History of Topic

National Association for Prenatal Addiction Research and Education (NAPARE) found in a study that 11 percent of newborns out of 36 hospitals were affect by their mothers illegal substance abuse during pregnancy (Roberts 1997:155). Giving information like this to the media is like a drop of blood in a shark tank, the media had an epidemic. This epidemic has actors: women, who against the gendered maternal instinct, place their addiction over their children (Roberts 1997:156). Crack was already labeled black because it was an inner city problem and drug, 'urban.' It would only stand to reason that all these crack mothers are also black. The media filtered out illegal substance and put crack in the focus because it was the 'it' problem. The media runs epidemics like Pepsi runs marketing: get a brand name then expand on it. Crack was already a major social problem people feared even more under Regan and his war on drugs, but now it's getting worse.

The 'crack baby' is a media invention preying on traditional fears; children, women's sexuality, drugs, crime, and minorities. The myth is simple, if the mother smokes crack she will have a 'crack baby.' Something this simple should be questioned right away, but in the factoid media we have today at least it is a complete sentence. The definition of crack baby varies from source to source. The only constants are that the mother used cocaine and this had a negative mental and physical effect on the child.

Theories rage from the babies get high in the womb to the babies will be addicts themselves. This wonderful trend in our media of reporting information (We're just reporting it, not sure or not if it is true.) and not presenting factual information is one of the ways in which the crack baby myth has stayed with us so long.

The War on Drugs provided the backdrop for this social problem. People using crack was bad enough, but not their sickness is spreading to children. With the media reporting on 'crack babies' nearly nonstop the government armed with factoids was ready to pander to a half informed irritated public. Whatever plan for the war Regan had he could easily make the connection to stopping crack babies.

Now we are going to have this vast army of 'crack babies' that will be our problem, because their parents are crack heads and will be unable to provide. How can we curb their growing numbers, something has to stop this. The answer of course falls back on the mother, blame works the same as electricity it follows the path of least resistance.

Justice John P. McGoorty not granting a woman a divorce because she had an illegal abortion, "A woman who would destroy life in that manner is not fit for decent society. It is the duty of any healthy married woman to bear children (Reagan 1997:104)." If this is the pre-legal abortion sediment then modern programs to punish mothers and make birth a crime are of the same vein. Mothers who test positive for cocaine after birth are going to jail. It is not illegal to have an addiction just possessing illegal substances is a crime. Mother are not being punished for having their addictions, "...the choice of carrying a pregnancy to term that is being penalized (Roberts 1997: 181)."
Government control is most felt by those taking part in social programs. Those that have private doctors needn't fear testing. A woman on welfare under the care of a state run facility is of course going to be tested. Your decision to have children can also affect your access to social programs because the court does not feel that you should have a choice, as with Judge Broadman making Norplant a condition of probation (Roberts 1997:199).

Leading up to our topic of discussion Children Requiring a Caring Community (C.R.A.C.K.) or Project Prevention. Offering cash in exchange for you participating in state programs to end your ability to reproduce children. In it's mission it says it only wants to reduce substance abuse births to zero. It also asserts that it does not have the resources to combat the social ills that lead to drug use because again its goal is substance births to zero (Project Prevention 2006). The Program is in 39 states and D.C. looking to expand at any time.

Analysis of Topic

C.R.A.C.K. as a name does not make any sense. If your goal is to reduce the number of substance-exposed births to zero what does it matter what community these children require. These children are never born. Then there is the money issue, they are a nonprofit organization using their money to pay addicts. They do not have money for anything else yet, between 2000-2004 Project Prevention received over 200,000 dollars from the Allegheny Foundation (Media Transparency 2004). This is just one grant that nearly equals the total number paid out to addicts in the program before 2006 when the changed the payout from 200 dollars to 300 dollars. Since the program started in 1997 1,765 people have participated. Times that by the original 200 dollar payout and you have 353,000$. The program has been around for nine years, in four it nearly made its entire cash prize.

If the program does not have the money to help the other social ills that causes 'crack babies' to be born then where is all their additional funding going? I understand there is a cause to running a foundation, but they have other sponsors and a donate link right on the site. Project Prevention seems to lack the ability to create social change, but has little difficulty in stopping you from becoming the burden on the state you know you will be. The tone of everything is so fixed and passive aggressive it smacks of inauthentic.

"We don't allow dogs to breed. We spay them. We neuter them. We keep them from wanting to have puppies, and yet these women are literally having litters of children (Scully 2000)." The above quote is from Barbara Harris comparing drug addicts to animals. This seems to go right along with the eugenics movement in that these people are lower than us and need to be culled. Now instead of it being a genetic problem, these people choose their defect. The idea is that they have no one to blame but themselves. Pay no mind to all the things Project Prevention does not have the money for, because they are not the real focus.

"If they spend the $200 on drugs, they spend it on drugs. It's none of our business what they do with the money we give them (Murphy 2003)." Barbara Harris eloquent as ever raises an interesting point, should we worry about what they use the money for? Giving someone with a drug problem cash and then telling them they can do what they want seem problematic at best. You do not give matches to an arsonist. It is Project Prevention business that these people have the ability to breed, but not how they spend the money given to them.

Choice is the key, can you really say the people involved in this program can choose. Project Prevention targets poor populations then offers them a cash payment. This poor population also has a drug problem. The money is also most labeled as either doing them a favor or paying them to do us a favor. Crack addicts will break into your home and steal your TV to pawn so they can buy more crack. I think they'd agree to this, waiting period or not, just for the payout. How odd an addict thinking only of their addiction and not the long term costs... "Rewarding someone for having a surgical procedure, they note, violates a basic principle of medical ethics: Health care decisions should be made by patients, without any form of pressure (Yeoman 2001)." If it is not your idea to help you is it really an ethical medical decision?

This is important, "After controlling for cofounders, there was no consistent negative association between prenatal cocaine exposure and physical growth, developmental test scores, or receptive or expressive language. Less optimal motor scores have been found up to age seven months but not thereafter, and may reflect heavy tobacco exposure. No independent cocaine effects have been shown on standardized parent and teacher reports of child behavior scored by accepted criteria (Ortiz 2003)." In light of this information Project Prevention seems to have a useless goal, or an even more limited one. The project is still concerned about the children in foster care and all the tax money it will take to care for them. Had this child never been born there would be no cost, just 300 dollars one time.

Project Prevention does not address tobacco addiction. "Tobacco use continues in approximately 25% of all pregnancies in the United States, overshadowingillicit drugs of abuse, including cocaine (Slotkin 1998)." The hazards of smoking on an unborn child are very clear, but are not covered by project prevention. There is a direct link between smoking and sudden infant death syndrome, low birth weight, and learning development problems (Slotkin 1998). If this substance causes more problems that other drugs and is used by more women it should also be addressed by this program. Would the public respond so quickly to a program that wanted to curb the reproduction of smokers? Should these people have their children taken away? The program would lose some effectiveness because the strongest power the program has is 'othering.' The other in this instance is the unfit mother, an addict.

The public does not have to directly support your program, but they should be able to dismiss it. A factoid about Project Prevention causes little problems for most people. Yet the same information about smokers would be problematic. It is a public image problem, because who is going to defend bad mothers and crack heads? Yet smokers are normal people with a bad habit, we all have bad habits. Of course this habit is just as deadly to a child, but is not a social problem. While there maybe an anti-smoking campaign in America we do not want to neuter them like dogs, yet.

Conclusion

Project prevention is just a band aide on larger social problems. Taking eugenic ideology and tweaking it so it is no longer genetic, but now a condition individuals choose. Not only are they a social problem that wants to make matters worse for tax payers by having children, but they brought it on themselves. The addict is pathological and cannot be saved we can however curb one problem at the source, the addicts reproduction.

The program does not care about how you got this way or what you will do with the money. They only focus on reducing the number of addict births to zero. This of course is not true because tobacco is used more by mothers with more detrimental effects to the unborn child. The programs true aim is to stop the reproduction of types of people. This is not prevention, but a bribe to people who may or may not even be capable of making such choices. Person whom are pulling down society with their problem. It is the addicts problem, not society, the government, or any other factors all this blame falls squarely on the shoulders of an individual. That would be nice to if we could pick out people and blame them for addiction, but this is not the case. Drug abuse is a social problem not a personal problem.

This population was already undesired in the past and continues to be bread out through new forms to genocide. There is a war on drugs, then why are the things that are attacked are addicted persons. You cannot be a crack head if you have no crack to smoke. The war is really on poverty stricken persons painted with the same image of the welfare queen, now this mother is the queen of both crack and welfare. In the coming years her empire will spread to whatever social ill will need an image. If they should reproduce then why not stop them from voting, or attending school, or having access to public programs.
We have replaced feebleminded with addict, but they mean the same thing. Only the addict choose their affliction. They can choose to help themselves by becoming a client of Project Prevention. Look how progressive our society is, instead of forcing people to get help like the sterilizations of the past we are now allowing themselves to help themselves through forced consent. Conspiracy is a word that shouldn't be used lightly, but there is no other way to describe the attack on poverty and women.

Annotated Biography

Jensen, Brennen. 2002. "Leave No Child Behind." Baltimore City Paper, March 13. Retrieved April 17, 2006.

(http://www.citypaper.com/news/story.asp?id=4772)

A look at Project Prevention's push in Baltimore. The program is not gaining any ground like it has in other cities. Also questions the racist overtones of the project, it would seem Barbara Harris is married two an African-American and has two adopted African-American children. It ends with a great praise from a crack head supporting the program wishing it had been around sooner.

Murphy, Clare. 2003. "Selling sterilisation to addicts." BBC News Online, September 2.

Retrieved April 17, 2006.

(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3189763.stm)

The news article covers most of the basics the others do, but it also has up-to-date statistics on Project Prevention. It breaks the number of people who have used the program by gender and race. The BBC then goes so far to compare it to other eugenic programs of the past. This objective look at the program is far more productive than the American, "Crack is wack."

Criminal Justice Policy Foundation. 2006. "Crack Babies." Sliver Spring MD: Criminal Justice Policy Foundation, Retrieved April 18, 2006.

(http://www.crack-babies.org/intro1.html)

Crack for dummies, providing information and history any every angle on the subject. The lack of any real scientific findings on the use of crack by pregnant women and how all current discourse is based on faulty information. Another weapon in the war on drugs, and has little to do with saving children or helping mothers. The crack baby is a scapegoat blaming the mother when poverty should be.

Scully, Judith M. 2000. "Cracking Open CRACK: Unethical sterilization movement gains momentum." Publication of the Population Development Program at Hampshire College. No. 2. Retrieved April 17 2006.

(http://popdev.hampshire.edu/projects/dt/pdfs/DifferenTakes_02.pdf)

Project Prevention takes the wrong approach with its funds and covers it with a good message. The program assumes women will always be addicted to a substance and does nothing to help them with their addiction. It hides the eugenic message with the guise of helping mothers and babies, well I'm not sure if you can help something that hasn't been born. The project is a quick fix for a select group of people when it should address larger social problems in society.

Media Transparency. 2006. "RECIPIENT GRANTS: Children Requiring a Caring Kommunity." Mpls., MN: Media Transparency, Retrieved April 17, 2006.

(http://www.mediatransparency.org/recipientgrants.php?recipientID=2134)

Project Prevention has been granted 205,000 dollars between 2000-2004 by the Allegheny Foundation. The foundation is knows for it charity to conservative causes. The first two years no reason was given for why the program was granted funds. The later two years general support was the foundations only comment. Oil money is being used to prevent a sect of the population from reproducing.

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 2006. "Project Prevention." Wikimedia Foundation, Inc, Retrieved April 17, 2006.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project%5FPrevention)

The most up-to-date source with related news as new as this year. Unbiased in the information provided. Seeing this issue without being involved gives insight to the issue. Even when you hear someone just list the fact it still sound very wrong.

Project Prevention. 2006. "The Cause." Harrisonburg NC: Project Prevention, Retrieved April 17, 2006.

(http://www.projectprevention.org/)

Project Prevention complete over view with statistics, which may or may not be true, and a mission statement, which may or may not be true. All the information needed to become involved in the project is right at hand, although I'm not sure how many crack heads have computers. The reasons for the program are a collection of sob stories about the horrors of crack use for children. The program say nothing about helping the women beyond giving them pipe money and birth control.

Sailer, Steve. 2002. "Q&A with Barbara Harris: Paying Cash to Crack Addicts for Contraception." United Press International, May 9. Retrieved 17, 2006.

(http://www.isteve.com/2002_QA_Barbara_Harris.htm)

Describing Project Prevention as an "innovative and controversial charity" reading this makes me this the journalist is either really bad, or the entire article was written by Harris for this guy. The author keeps describing her youthful looks and great personality. As you read on thanks to her work in the community we can only assume sainthood is near. Ending with Harris claming they have nothing but support from the public the article is so smug it angers me.

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Yeoman, Barry. 2001. "Surgical Strike." Barry Yeoman Journalist, November/December 2001. Retrieved 17, 2006.

(http://www.barryyeoman.com/articles/surgical.html)

Questions the informed consent the people in this program (because it isn't just women) have. Exactly when did we as a society start to feel that crack heads are in any position to make any life changing choices? Rewarding someone to get a procedure done is unethical, any medical choices should be made by people of a sound mind without any outside pressure. The article questions the logic of giving crack heads money without any guidelines as to what they can do with it.

Ortiz, Ana Teresa, and Briggs, Laura. 2003. "The Culture of Poverty, Crack Babies, and Welfare Cheats The Making of the 'Healthy White Baby Crisis.'" Duke University Press 21.3. Retrieved May 6, 2006.

(http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/social_text/v021/21.3ortiz.html)

Discusses the framework in which the crack baby was constructed. Forming the children as helpless and the lower class families as pathological. Showing how the culture of poverty is what really drives things like the 'crack baby' myth. Crack babies are a myth because crack cocaine has little to no affect on unborn children, it is really a political target.

Slotkin, Theodore A. 1998. "Fetal Nicotine or Cocaine Exposure: Which One is Worse?"

THE JOURNAL OF PHARMACOLOGY AND EXPERIMENTAL THERAPEUTICS 285: 3. Retrieved May 6, 2006.

(http://jpet.aspetjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/285/3/931)

Provides information on what is worse for unborn children than crack. 25 % of all mothers still smoke while pregnant. This is far more than who use crack. People focus on crack people the population that uses it is predominantly poor. While tobacco is more detrimental for your health a debate will never start on the effects of tobacco because of the illegal drug debate.

Johnson, Jennifer Mott. 2001. "REPRODUCTIVE ABILITY FOR SALE, DO I HEAR $200?:PRIVATE CASH-FOR-CONTRACEPTION AGREEMENTS AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO MATERNAL SUBSTANCE ABUSE." The Arizona Law Review 43: 1. Retrieved May 7, 2006.

(http://www.law.arizona.edu/journals/alr/ALR2001/ALR431/johnson_final_final. Pdf)

C.R.A.C.K. itself is not so much a threat, the real threat comes from the idea C.R.A.C.K. lays on the table. Other groups may adopt the idea, but with other populations in mind. The author tries to find a middle ground between women's rights and the rights of the unborn child. The problem of a preventative program that doesn't prevent the main cause of the problem. This program only looks at curbing birth, not drug use.

Sterk, Claire E. 1999. "Fast Lives: Women who use crack cocaine." Temple University Press 242 p. Retrieved May 6, 2006.

(http://www.jstor.org/view/00943061/di014993/01p14592/0)

Simplistic and racist programs like project prevention can easily come back into social acceptance just so long as they have a popular addenda. In the long run these programs will be ineffective because larger social problems that create these situations are not addressed. This is just another band aide on a growing class problem. With the growing misinformation through the media on 'crack babies' this could continue into a socially supported program.

Roberts, Dorthy. 1997. Killing the Black Body. New York, NY: Vintage Books.

How the historical perception of black women continues to cause discrimination against them. This abuse of black women's bodies continues today in many different forms. The black mother is not valued when compared to the white mother, this lack of value affects the liberty of black women. The government continues these trends working against reproductive rights of black women.

Davis, Angela Y. 1981. Women, Race and Class. New York, NY: Random House.

Voluntary motherhood is essential to equal rights for women. If populations of women do not have a choice in their role as mother. Some populations are valued for reproducing while others are discouraged. The forms of reproductive control are racist and planned, but placed under the guise of social programs from the state.

Reagan, Leslie J. 1997. When Abortion Was a Crime: Women, Medicine, and Law in the United States, 1867-1973. California, Berkeley: University of CA Press.

Woman's reproduction is tied to the institution of the family. This system makes men marry women and support the family, women bear and raise the children. Deviation from this resulted in State intervention. You will be punished for deviation from your gendered role.