by Andrew Walden
Hawaii can’t figure out how to kick drug addicted homeless people out of the parks and sidewalks in order to force them into shelters where they can get help, but apparently induced sterilization is now an option. Today’s SB Editorial, “Voluntary (sic) sterilization can serve good purpose”, reveals that an eugenics group has been quietly working in Honolulu:
Project Prevention, originally named Children Requiring a Caring Kommunity, or Crack, will complete its distribution of fliers in Honolulu tomorrow, offering what would be out-of-bounds if offered by government agencies. Barbara Harris, who founded and now is executive director of the project, aims to keep medical disabilities and emotional problems from being passed to the next generation.
Perhaps we missed the news article about the arrival of this group? Or did SB Editors and other media, non-profit, and government sources choose not to reveal this news? A non-exact-term Google search for “Children Requiring a Caring Kommunity Honolulu” reveals only the SB editorial, no other coverage.
Harris' unvarnished candor has created much of the strong reaction
"We don't allow dogs to breed," she told the British edition of Marie Claire magazine in 1998. "We spay them. We neuter them. We try to keep them from having unwanted children, and yet these women are literally having litters of children."
Her critics, led by National Advocates for Pregnant Women, were quick to respond, comparing the statement to that of Nazis who "said if you just sterilized the sick people and Jews you would improve the economy."
NAPW is a pro-abortion group, but even they can’t stand the Star-Bulletin’s heroes. (Scroll down to see NAAPW’s analysis of C.R.A.C.K.)
The main difference, of course, is that the women signing up for Project Prevention do so voluntarily.
WRONG. Addictions make this a choice to take money under duress.
Accusations that the project is racist are unfounded. Of their clients in 39 states, 1,600 are Caucasian (49% of those sterilized, but 66% of US population) , 884 African-Americans (twice proportion of population), 418 Hispanic and 340 of other ethnicities (double the proportion of population), far off the general population's race percentages but a more realistic reflection of those troubled with drug addiction and alcoholism.
Who does the 10% “other ethnicities” refer to? Asians? American Indians? Hawaiians?
And the Star-Bulletin’s opinion?
Assigning such a policy to a government agency could cause concern about its propriety. Harris' relatively small operation serves a good purpose in providing an appropriate alternative in extreme cases.
SB also says CRACK sterilization would be “out-of-bounds if offered by government agencies.” In reality, government—including prison--personnel are responsible for a significant percentage of referrals. SALON.com’s article, Is C.R.A.C.K. wack?, explains…
What's more, the group is increasingly getting referrals from unlikely and controversial sources: publicly funded jails, probation centers, drug treatment centers and even hospitals. Addicts who are directed to CRACK by public employees now account for a quarter of the program's participants.
One new supporter is the Bernalillo County Detention Center in Albuquerque, N.M., which last summer began hosting biweekly CRACK presentations for inmates…
Remember all the liberals who say everything is “racist”? Well look at the ONE thing they have found not to be “racist”.
This is the key to understanding liberalism.
---30---
SB fluff piece: Program pays addicts to use birth control
"Yesterday they began a three-day stint in Honolulu, sharing fliers with anyone who would listen, drifting from the Institute for Human Services to Aala Park to wherever they thought they might find new clients...."
Does IHS approve of this?
RELATED:
C.R.A.C.K.
by NAPW
Many people have lauded C.R.A.C.K. (Children Requiring a Caring Kommunity), also known as Project Prevention, as a sensible and socially responsible program. This program offers $200 for current and former drug users to get sterilized or to use certain long-acting birth control methods. It was founded by Barbara Harris, a committed individual who believes sincerely in what she is doing.
Many people, however, have also challenged this program as a violation of informed consent, as exploitive, coercive, racist and as a form of eugenic population control. A few have addressed the question of whether the program creates a valid contract under standard contract law principles. Still others have argued that at its core, this program invites people to sell their reproductive capacity, and that like the sale of organs, sex, and children, selling the ability to reproduce should be outlawed as a matter of public policy.
While NAPW addresses many of these arguments, our work focuses more broadly on the question of whether or not people concerned with the problems C.R.A.C.K. purports to address, including drug addiction, unwanted pregnancies, child welfare, and public health should support it. NAPW takes seriously what the C.R.A.C.K. program says and what it does, closely examining the data it relies on, the rhetoric it uses, and the influence it is having and is likely to have in the future.
NAPW's examination of the program makes clear that, far from providing a useful response to problems associated with drug use and pregnancy, C.R.A.C.K. instead acts as a dangerous vector for medical misinformation and political propaganda that has significant implications for the rights of all Americans. Under the guise of openness, voluntary choice, and personal empowerment, C.R.A.C.K. not only promotes a vicious image of all drug users, it has won significant support for a program and an ideology that is at the core of civil rights violations and eugenic population control efforts.
As NAPW's law review article on the program documents, 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, false information, and horrific images depicting bad women who not only do not deserve to have children, but also do not deserve any form of compassion or support. As Assata Zerai and Rae Banks argue, this kind of "dehumanizing discourse" has a significant influence on public policy responses.
Those who support C.R.A.C.K. are not simply helping to pay the two hundred dollar incentive, they are also contributing to extensive outreach and an ideologically-based public education campaign. C.R.A.C.K. maintains a website, has had a billboard campaign, distributes flyers by hand and mail, and produces significant media coverage through well organized and well funded press conferences and press releases. In 1999, C.R.A.C.K. was the "focus of thirty television interviews, four magazine articles and several newspaper articles."
Through these public events, C.R.A.C.K. promotes a vision of pregnant women with health problems as "child abusers," portrays healthy children as damaged, and fosters stereotypes, prejudice, and medical misinformation. As a result, C.R.A.C.K. undermines, rather than promotes, the welfare of children and caring communities. For these reasons, NAPW believes that those truly committed to the well-being of children and families must oppose the C.R.A.C.K. program.