WOMAN WHO PAYS ADDICTS NOT TO CONCEIVE IS WELCOMED

366 Have Been Sterilized Or Given Birth Control

The founder of a group that offers $200 to drug addicts who agree to
long-term birth control or sterilization enjoyed a warmer welcome at
the Menlo Park Rotary Club yesterday than she did from a spitting
crowd in Oakland last year.

That's when angry protesters ripped down Barbara Harris' first Bay
Area billboard advertising C.R.A.C.K., Children Requiring a Caring
Kommunity, saying she was singling out minority groups for her
program.

Yesterday, the Orange County homemaker told a lunchtime gathering of
about 60 people, predominantly white, older males, that her mission
is not racist.

"We don't target any race," she said. "We target a behavior."

That behavior is drug use by pregnant women, who give birth to an
average of 375,000 babies a year. C.R.A.C.K.'s clients are divided
almost evenly between whites and blacks, plus a handful of other
ethnic groups.

Since its inception in 1997, C.R.A.C.K. has paid 366 women and three
men not to reproduce. Most chose tubal ligation, followed by
injections of the contraceptive Depo-Provera. The men received
vasectomies.

In most cases, the clients are poor, so the government pays for the
birth control. The clients are free to spend the $200 as they choose.

Before curtailing their reproductive life, the women and three men
were responsible for close to 2,000 pregnancies, with about 650 of
those ending in abortion and close to 700 babies ending up in foster
care.

Detractors cannot argue with the need for intervention. One applicant
to the program reported 15 pregnancies and 12 abortions. And Harris
is fond of pointing to the case of "Zachary," whose mother gave birth
to six addicted babies. Zachary required 24-hour care and died after
three years, costing taxpayers $4 million.

So why point out how much it costs the public to fund these
children's lives? "If I can't touch people's hearts, I'll touch their
pockets," Harris said.

Money is part of the reason Harris was in Menlo Park yesterday; the
group has financial backers in the area. Harris also was in town to
visit one of her three biological children, 20-year-old Brian, who
studies communication at Stanford University.

Brian Harris said he has seen his mother grow from simply being angry
at the drug-addicted mothers to recognizing them as real people.

He admitted that he has not accepted the program without question.
But growing up with his four adopted siblings, he's seen firsthand
how drug abuse affects the children.

"It's one of those things that if I heard about it on the news, I may
be up in arms," he said. "But knowing my mother, I know her heart's
in the right place."

But people like Peter Belden, spokesman for Planned Parenthood Mar
Monte, say that's not enough.

"We're concerned about the potential for coercion," Belden said.
"When a woman is addicted to drugs, she's not in a position to make
such a decision."

And, he said, deciding who should not reproduce is a slippery slope.

"One could make the same argument for the single parent," he said.

Joining Harris yesterday were financial backers John Novick of Marin,
who paid for the Oakland billboard, and James Woodhill, a Houston
businessman who also lives in San Francisco.

Woodhill gave Harris $50,000 for her nonprofit group, which she says
now counts more than $500,000 in its coffers.

Woodhill said it is not that the organization doesn't care about the
addicted parents, but that it is most effective intervening in the
reproductive cycle. It's up to other social service groups to help
the women, he said.

"You might as well ask us why we don't man the border at El Paso to
keep heroin out of the country," he said.