Adopting a crack baby generation
When Barbara Harris was 37, she started wishing she could have a daughter. It was 1989, and by that time only two of her six sons were still at home. So she filled out all the paperwork, and later that summer got a call about an 8-month-old baby girl. As soon as Barbara met her, she knew that was it - this was her daughter. She named her Destiny Harris. But before she could take her home, the social worker told Barbara that Destiny had tested positive for crack, PCP, and heroin. Her mom was addicted to drugs, and doctors said Destiny was delayed mentally and physically as a result, and always would be. Producer Pat Walters flew down to North Carolina to meet Barbara and Destiny, who's now 22 years old. And Barbara tells Pat, a few months after she brought Destiny home, she and her husband got another call. Destiny's mom had given birth to another boy. They went to the hospital to pick him up, and he was going through withdrawal from heroin. Then Barbara got another call: a little girl. And a year later, another little boy. By 1994 she'd adopted four kids from the same woman. And she was feeling angry - how could this be allowed to happen? She decided to take a stand by trying to get a law passed for longterm birth control. And when that failed, she decided to take matters into her own hands. She founded an organization called Project Prevention, and began paying women with drug addiction to get IUDs, or get sterilized. Lynn Paltrow, the Executive Director and founder of National Advocates for Pregnant Women, argues that Project Prevention is misguided and harmful, and articulates many of the objections raised by Barbara's critics. More: While Barbara's prenatal neglect law didn't pass, other states have since found ways to prosecute women for using drugs during their pregnancies. For an overview, check out this excellent New York Times Magazine story. For more on.
On the first day of Spring, there was a scientific study that made its way through all the major news outlets concerning the behavioral issues of children born to mothers addicted to methamphetamine. In a nutshell, the story reads in a predictable fashion: children born to meth-addicted mothers exhibited behavioral problems, which were exacerbated by poverty and the lack of a man in the household. That’s pretty standard reporting considering this was the first study of its kind and most researchers don’t want to jump to conclusions, which are always subject to change. But there was something missing from the coverage that would normally accompany drug research findings. Luckily, Jezebel hinted at the void with its headline “ Meth Babies Are the New Crack Babies.” So what was missing from all the coverage? Fear Hysteria A Presidential, Oval Office, Fireside chat with Americans about how tough we need to be on meth users and sellers, complete with a full scale ratcheting up of the “ War on Drugs” and new mandatory minimum prison sentences for these “soulless creatures” ripping away at the fabric of small, rural middle- America, people who Sarah Palin coined “ Real America.” Jezebel’s headline is still relevant to its primarily white audience if you peruse the comment section. Because of its very real moral significance to America’s narrative, evoking the ghosts of crack babies is clever but is it a fair comparison? Bearing in mind blacks for the most part are still enduring, suffering, and surviving in rural poverty or crack and other illicit drug-infested inner cities — arguably the only robust black communities left after “integration” — the black children born to crack mothers seem to fill the role of test subjects — yoked, branded, and monitored in projects as representations of a time when black life was patently evil and destructive yet seductively commodifiable, a.
Round and round spins a little girl with silky brown curls and far-apart eyes. Serena, don't, says Annie, her adoptive mother. Stony-faced, the two-year-old continues her private waltz till she crashes on top of a mound of toys. Her adopted brother, Matt, who's four, materializes by her side. As though the presence of this elfin, coffee-colored child were a cue, Serena, still flat on her back, grasps a block and lobs it at his head. Contact. Serena chuckles deep in her throat. Matt, felled to the floor, emits a room-swallowing shriek. He will keep shrieking long after Annie, a large, gentle woman whose dark eyes sparkle behind cheap glasses, picks him up and cradles him in her arms. In time, Annie sets Matt on his feet. The toddlers begin to roam, both on aimless trajectories in which the one goal — forward motion — is broken only by dips to pick up toys that are just as quickly hurled back to the floor. Over the course of the next four hours, neither will smile, not even once. What about a crack baby? the social worker asked when Annie first went looking for a child. A single black woman from Brooklyn, Annie had spent twenty years caring for all and sundry in her orbit who were in need. Then, four years ago, at thirty-four, Annie decided the time had come to be selfish — at least, selfish by her lights. She wanted a baby. Specifically, she wanted to adopt a healthy baby girl. Annie had no interest in crack babies. The social worker persisted. Crack babies are fussy to start, she said. You may have some sleepless nights. But any long-term problems should be minor. Annie stood firm: A healthy child or none at all. Please, the social worker finally said. We're desperate. And so Annie abandoned her dream of a perfect baby and adopted the only child available, Matt, and then, a year later, Serena — two pretty, mixed-race babies who sprang from bodies that had their own.