Group That Pays Addicts to Be Sterilized Takes Its Publicity Abroad

Project Prevention is a controversial U.S. nonprofit that pays $300 to drug addicts who volunteer for long-term birth control, which often means sterilization. It has operated since 1997, originally as Children Requiring A Caring Kommunity (CRACK), just expanded to Britain (at £200), and plans to cover Australia and perhaps Africa.

The British operation, which is funded by a single $20,000 donation from an American expat, has been controversial since at least March. The noise spilled over to Time magazine in April, which quoted a London-based treatment agency as calling Project Prevention "morally reprehensible and irrelevant," and continued in May. The storm reached a crescendo in October, when, one British man accepted the cash for a vasectomy, in a televised ceremony. Some are even reported as accusing the group of "genocide" and, more circumspectly, former UK home secretary David Blunkett said:

"My big worry is that, whatever the good intentions, this money is likely to go straight into the dealer's hands as they buy a £200 tranche of heroin or crack."

In the face of this torrent of criticism, the founder, Barbara Harris, remains extremely sure of herself and somewhat cavalier in her attitudes, for instance saying:

"If they want to tell their doctor, that's their choice - we don't communicate with doctors."

That seems odd: Her organization is predicated on the irresponsibility of the clients, and yet she blithely abdicates any liability to ensure they get proper medical advice. And then there is an infamous comment that she has repeated rather than retracting:

"We don't allow dogs to breed. We spay them. We neuter them. We try to keep them from having unwanted puppies, and yet these women are literally having litters of children."

Some of the publicity may seem a little overblown. After all, precisely one Briton has taken the money (incidentally, he seems not to conform to the stated rules that addicts they pay already be parents), and in 13 years, Project Prevention has paid for only 1319 women to have tubal ligations, as well as for 54 vasectomies and 2227 clients who adopted other forms of long-term birth control, such as IUDs, Depo-Provera, etc. That hardly seems like an efficient use of "half a million dollars a year in donations," from a donor base that includes the billionaire Republican Richard Scaife.

Project Prevention may not be a classic scam, in that its officers may be sincere, but it represents a very dangerous tendency, and one that is superficially all too appealing. (An online Huffington Post poll is currently showing 59–41 support for its activities, with vigorous debate in the comments.) That is why the National Advocates for Pregnant Women has come out strongly in opposition, while the Committee on Women, Population, and the Environment (CWPE) has summarized many of the reasons to oppose CRACK aka Project Prevention (explanations here):

• The mission is eugenic.
• It limits birth control options.
• It increases health risks for women.
• It impedes the goals of substance abuse treatment.
• It capitalizes on the myths of "crack babies."

CWPE concludes its list of criticisms thus:

Women with substance abuse problems need drug treatment, decent jobs, educational opportunities, mental health services, and childcare services. It is the lack of these services and the denial of human dignity, which exacerbate conditions of poverty, racism, social status and gender discrimination. These conditions can lead to women seeking out substances to medicate pain. Therefore, it is oppression that needs to be eliminated, not the reproductive capacity of women.

Previously on Biopolitical Times:

• Time to Stop Burying Our Eugenic Histories
• A Singular Kind of Eugenics
• Eugenics: Remembering History and the Living Victims
• Everyday Eugenics