Pubdate: Tue, 22 Jul 2003
Source: Sun News (Myrtle Beach, SC)
Copyright: 2003 Sun Publishing Co.
Contact:  http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/mld/sunnews/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/987
Author: Karen Garloch /Knight Ridder
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?175 (Pregnancy)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)
Note: apparent 150 word limit on LTEs

ADDICTS GET CASH FOR BIRTH CONTROL 

Organizer Moves To N.C. Location 

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - When Barbara and Smitty Harris adopted four of eight
children born to a Los Angeles crack addict, they saw firsthand how
drugs taken during pregnancy can harm infants.

An angry Barbara Harris came up with an unorthodox plan to prevent
such births. She offered to pay $200 to any addict who got sterilized
or used long-term birth control. Since 1997, about 1,000 women and 24
men have taken the money.

This week, the cash-for-contraception program - called CRACK (Children
Requiring A Caring Kommunity) - opens its national headquarters in
Harrisburg, about three miles northeast of the University of North
Carolina at Charlotte.

The Harrises recently moved from California to be closer to Smitty's
High Point relatives, but the change doesn't mean CRACK is targeting
addicts in the Carolinas. (Only one Carolinian, from South Carolina,
is on her client list.) Clients from across the country reach CRACK
through a toll-free phone number - 1-888-302-7225 - advertised on
brochures, billboards and a Web site.

Harris, 50, a white high-school dropout whose father threw her out 31
years ago when she gave birth to a black child out of wedlock, said
her goal is to prevent child abuse.

"For them to get on birth control is positive, even if it takes a cash
incentive. This is voluntary. The women come to us."

Voluntary or not, CRACK has drawn criticism from women's rights
advocates and ethicists who say Harris unfairly targets low-income
black women and perpetuates a stereotype that they have too many
children and cause many of society's problems.

"What she is doing is perfectly legal and entirely unethical," said
Angela Holder, a lawyer and ethics professor at Duke University's
Center for the Study of Medical Ethics and Humanities.

"She talks about these women as if they're animals," said Holder, who
first saw Harris on television several years ago.

Lynn Paltrow, executive director of the New York-based National
Advocates for Pregnant Women, said CRACK diverts attention from more
serious problems, such as fetal alcohol syndrome and the lack of drug
treatment programs and health care.

"By focusing attention on welfare queens and pregnant, drug-using
women, it makes it appear that society's problems are the fault of
certain women," she said.

Paltrow said Harris spreads misinformation about the effects on babies
born to cocaine-addicted mothers.

Herb Kleber, an addiction researcher at New York's Columbia
University, said there is a big concern that babies born to cocaine
addicts can suffer developmental delays and other problems that can
show up later.

"What's not clear is what the cause of that is," he said. "It's very
hard to find women who only do cocaine. Usually those that are doing
cocaine also are not eating properly. Most of them smoke. Most of them
drink. They may not be terribly good mothers."

Harris said she doesn't target low-income women, but "wealthy drug
addicts wouldn't be interested in our offer."

She said she also pays alcoholics and doesn't care what color CRACK
fund recipients are. Of CRACK's clients, 498 have been white, 341
black and the rest of other races.

The money that funds CRACK is donated.
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MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin