Crack Case

CRACK

Should women addicted to crack be able to have children? Barbara Harris says no. Harris has adopted four children from a drug addict. She has also founded CRACK (Children Requiring A Caring Kommunity) a non-profit organization that offers $200 in cash to addicts who agree to be sterilized or undergo long-term contraception like Norplant, which is surgically imbedded under the skin. In this essay I will be discussing what the ethical dilemma is, who the stakeholders are in this ethical dilemma, analyzing the problem by reference to the categorical imperative, analyzing the problem from a Kantian and utilitarian standpoint and giving my overall opinion of this matter.

As I understand it the ethical dilemma here is the procedure in itself. Some are saying that the women are doing it for the money to buy more drugs. Also, saying that it takes away women rights to reproduce. Physicians and attorneys are saying that the women are in no condition to consent to being sterilized. They say that because these women are mentally ill and poor they are not capable of making their own decisions. But Barbara Harris from her own experiences says that women addicted to crack do not need to have babies. These women are bringing babies into the world addicted to crack. She tells of a story of how she adopted four children from a crack addicted woman. One of the children would wake up screaming in the middle of the night. She says it looked like his eyes were about to pop out of his head. For this very reason she decided to start CRACK. She wanted to save other children from these addictions but there are winners and losers in all things. This situation is no different.

Barbara Harris would be a winner. She has started a program to sterilize crack addicted women. She is preventing women that are addicted to crack from having crack addicted babies. The women that are addicted to crack are receiving $200 for participating in the procedure. They can choose to do something good with the money or buy more drugs. Both Harris and women are winners. These women babies are not born with that addiction and they are the real winners. Children do not have to go through the pain that Harris witnessed her adopted son go through. Recognizing all the good that is coming from CRACK there are still people that oppose and we shall call them the losers. Physicians and attorneys both say these women are not considered capable, that they have a disease, which cause them not to be able to make decisions for themselves. But they can decide to have crack addicted babies? Ultimately if these women were to have these babies it would not be fair. Their babies would be born under this terrible addiction. The mothers, who would not care, would put them in foster homes to be burdens on another. The children are the ones who suffer the most and that is what Harris realized. Here I have stated who benefits and does not