Criminalization of Pregnant Substance Abusers

Andrea Smith’s cogent argument in her article “Better Dead Than Pregnant” enlightens us to the multitude of ways Native women are blatantly discriminated against when it comes to their reproductive rights and health care.  She specifically focuses on the faults of the Indian Health Service (IHS). While there are numerous topics within her article that deserve more attention, an area of particular interest for me was when she discussed the criminalization of pregnant substance abusers.  In this blog, I plan to analyze this idea through the framework that even though the system of health care that Native women rely on claims to be preventative, it is really a system based on punishment. 

The health care system Native women have to deal with is much different than the health care many upper and middle class white women are used to.  While many people might be used to having a choice as to which doctors they see and the ability to seek a second opinion, these are not luxuries that Native women who rely on IHS have access to.  Legislation on reproductive rights doesn’t just neglect Native women, it intentionally targets them.  Andrea Smith gives the gruesome example of Inuit women who were not offered anesthesia during their abortions.  Smith informs us that this was a punitive measure meant to deter the women from becoming pregnant again.  She writes, “By increasing the pain and trauma associated with abortion, or by making it inaccessible, the health care establishment exerts even more pressure on Native women to agree to sterilizations or dangerous contraceptives” (98).  I think it’s important that we see this action for what it really is: a punishment for being a Native pregnant woman.  The fact that there is such a vehement reluctance for Native babies to be born proves that they are not wanted or valued by our dominant white culture.  The severe punishments that Smith names, especially including forced sterilization, are evidence of yet another, albeit more secretive, genocide of Native peoples.

Smith uses the example of the organization CRACK and its extreme pro-criminalization stance.  The acronym stands for “Children Requiring a Caring Kommunity” which in and of itself is problematic.  Similar to the way viewing the pregnant woman as an incubator and giving super-subjectivity to the fetus strips the woman of her bodily integrity, focusing the organization on the children rather than the actual people who are struggling with drug addictions takes the focus off of where it really needs to be to make any improvements.  The name is a complete falsity regardless, or at the very least is extremely misleading; although it sounds like the organization cares about the children born to drug-addicted mothers, it really cares about the taxpayers who will have their tax money used to help them.  The organization also funded sterilizations (Smith 86).  Clearly there can be no children in need of a Caring Kommunity if there are no children. CRACK also changed its name to Project Prevention (how ironic, considering our topic here).

Barbara Harris (founder of CRACK) with family members

As problematic as these things are, the real trouble with CRACK/Project Prevention is that it believes “Poor women who are substance abusers are the cause of social ills, and that the conditions that give rise to poor women becoming substance abusers do not need to be addressed” (Smith 86).  This is why they opt for criminalization rather than rehabilitation for these women.  The physical ailments that might plague the baby of a drug abuser mark that baby as not only less valuable than an able-bodied one, but also more burdensome, explains Smith.  She writes, “Lives are of value to the extent that they meet capitalist expectations of self-sufficiency and productivity” (Smith 87).  Disabled children are not valuable because they are perceived as being unable to produce.  If our capitalist society is so driven by production, profit, and money, why does it continue to waste precious funds on incarcerating drug abusers rather than directing a fraction of that money to rehabilitation services and achieving even better results?  

The Justice Policy Institute published a policy report comparing the costs of incarceration versus rehabilitation.  One study done in Maryland yielded these results:

If it costs one fifth of the price to treat a drug offender than to incarcerate them, why isn’t it our go-to method?  Not only would treating women drug abusers cost less, but it would also help to diminish the number of future offenses and therefore future costs of incarceration.  CRACK would be happy to know that it could also lower the risk of babies being born disabled (or as our culture sees it, worthless and burdensome).

The criminalization of drug abusers does not improve our society at all.  Although many of us wonder how a pregnant woman could justify using drugs and potentially harming her baby, the issue goes much deeper than that.  It is about not crossing the line that takes away each woman’s bodily integrity, which is a very blurry line for our culture when it comes to reproductive rights.  The reason for the magnitude of passion for this issue is also not what it seems; as the example of CRACK/Project Prevention proves, the underlying reason for depriving Native women and other women of color the option of bearing children is really a twisted way the dominant white culture shows its distaste for the continued existence of Native peoples and people of color.