Pubdate: Tue, 1 Jan 2002 Source: Mother Jones (US) Copyright: 2001 Foundation for National Progress Contact: http://www.mapinc.org/media/277 Website: http://motherjones.com/ Author: Barbara Harris, Melinda Young Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n1807/a09.html Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/racial.htm (Racial Issues) ADDICTS AND ADVOCATES Your article "Surgical Strike" (November/December) quotes people who look at our organization, Children Requiring a Caring Kommunity (CRACK), as anti-poor and anti-black because we offer drug addicts $200 to accept long-term birth control or sterilization so they won't produce more addicted babies. An NAACP official says, "How can you come in and say that you are concerned with the welfare of the mothers...?" Good question. We don't say we're concerned with the welfare of the mothers. CRACK's mission is to stop them from having more doomed babies. As for Chris Brand, "the British psychologist who is working to expand CRACK overseas," that's news to me. I talked to him once and thought he was pretty strange. His ideas about blacks being inferior aren't welcome to me. Still, if this man causes CRACK to work overseas, fine. I care about results. His motives are his own business. Barbara Harris, CRACK Stanton, California - -------------------------------------- As a bleeding-heart liberal, I am surprised to find myself on the same side of an issue as Laura Schlessinger and Richard Mellon Scaife. However, that does not cause me to waver in my support for encouraging female drug addicts to become sterilized. To me, this issue is as clear as my prochoice stance: I am for abortion and reproductive rights for all women primarily because I believe no child should enter this world unwanted. Perhaps what is really bothering some of my fellow liberals is that these poor, drug-sick women are willing to give up their reproductive rights for so cheap a price. Melinda Young Tryon, North Carolina - --- MAP posted-by: Doc-Hawk