Jul
2
Organization Pays Addicted Women to Undergo Permanent Sterilization
This doesn’t really apply to the original link, but re: the meth/crack comparison here (which is spot on) - alcohol (in excess; a half a glass of wine for dinner is at least according to some doctors fine) and tobacco might actually be worse for developing fetuses than crack. It’s very difficult to study the effects of crack on pregnancies, because most people who are addicted to crack are also a) poor and b) using other drugs; the research, according to this article at National Advocates For Pregnant Women, is not yet conclusive about the extent to which crack damages developing fetus, while the research is in fact pretty clear that poverty, ill nutrition, lack of prenatal care, premature birth, alcohol abuse, and tobacco use are all pretty terrible for them.The “crack baby epidemic” was about a lot more than the question of “do babies born to mothers with drug addictions have a higher likelihood of birth defects?” It was about saying that babies born to addicted mothers will have birth defects, and they will always be absolutely devestating, and so these women are a menace to society who deserve our horror and scorn and need to be locked up, and did we show enough pictures of them yet for you good white audiences to understand that they’re mostly poor black women? It was about scare tactics and racism. I mean, I don’t think the reason that there aren’t currently tons of reports about “meth babies” is because meth during pregnancy is way better for you than crack.
