CHICAGO -- The billboards make an unusual offer.

"If you are addicted to drugs," they say, "get birth control -- get $200 cash."

The signs, which went up recently in neighborhoods in Chicago, advertise a
program that will start here on Monday, intended to persuade drug-addicted
women to get sterilized or get long-term birth control like Norplant or
Depo-Privera. Once the women offer proof that they have done so, they will
be given $200 in cash.

Called Crack, for Children Requiring a Caring Kommunity, the
privately-financed campaign is an offshoot of one that began in California
about 18 months ago and appears to be catching on. Billboards have gone up
in Florida and Minnesota. Women in Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and Michigan
have received money after taking the required steps, according to the
group's Web site, www.cracksterilization.com.

The Chicago offshoot, which is also distributing fliers at health clinics,
is the first to open other than the program's headquarters in Anaheim and
will be run by a social worker here.

The program has attracted considerable attention. Groups including Planned
Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union say the tactics coerce
poor women whose judgment is clouded by drugs into doing something they may
later regret.

"It's simply a bribe for sterilization, and that's improper and it's wrong,"
said Steve Trombley, the president and chief executive officer of Planned
Parenthood of Chicago. "It is troubling that they appear to not care at all
about the women and treating their problem."

The Crack program was started by a California woman, Barbara Harris, after
she adopted four children from the same drug-addicted mother.

"I thought, 'Here's this irresponsible woman walking around having babies
yearly and she can do that just because she has a right to get pregnant,"'
Ms. Harris said in an interview on Friday. "She has no intention of raising
them."

Ms. Harris tried, unsuccessfully, to get state legislation passed that would
"make it a crime to have a drug-addicted baby," she said. Then she took
matters into her own hands and decided to start paying for sterilization and
birth control, figuring it was a bargain compared with the cost of putting a
child in foster care.

"Why spend a million dollars later when you can prevent something by
spending $200 now?" she said.

While it is an unorthodox method, the Crack program reflects broader efforts
by states in recent years to penalize women who behave in ways that could
harm their unborn children. Court cases in 21 states have sought to make it
a crime for pregnant women to abuse alcohol or drugs. In 20 states, those
prosecutions have failed, but in South Carolina in 1997, the state Supreme
Court ruled that a pregnant crack addict was guilty under the state's
child-abuse laws. A similar case in Wisconsin is working its way through the
appellate system.

Three states, South Dakota, South Carolina and Wisconsin, passed fetal abuse
laws last year, either mandating that substance-abusing pregnant women be
forced into detoxification programs or subjecting them to jail time. Ms.
Harris says she is having no trouble getting private donations for her work,
including one for $5,000 from Dr. Laura Schlessinger, the conservative radio
talk show host.

So far, Ms. Harris said, her organization has paid 57 women who have been
pregnant a total of 423 times. "They had 161 abortions and gave birth 262
times," she said. "Forty of those babies died and 175 are in foster care."
The women have to submit documents, like an arrest report, to show that they
are on drugs. After they get the birth control procedures, usually paid for
with government assistance, they send in written proof.

One woman was Sharon Adams, 38, a former crack addict from the South-Central
section of Los Angeles. Ms. Adams had 14 children and saw 4 of them die and
9 placed in foster care. Ms. Adams, who had a tubal ligation through the
program, is said she was free of drugs now and raising her youngest child.
"I know I needed to get my tubes tied," Ms. Adams said, "but the $200 kind
of motivated me."

A Chicago woman, Marlo Purnell, said Friday she planned to take advantage of
the offer and get Norplant. Ms. Purnell, 31, said she was a crack addict who
has had to give up custody of her five children, ages 14 months to 10 years.
She said she would use the $200 to "probably pay some of my bills, like my
phone bill," and that she hoped to have more children "once I get my life
together."

Critics of the program say that its billboards target mostly minority
neighborhoods. Ms. Harris, who is white and runs the program almost
singlehandedly, responds that she could not be racist, since her husband, a
surgical technician, is black and nearly half of the women she has paid are
white.

A larger worry, critics say, is that women may feel coerced into giving up
their ability to have children, and not get any help or incentive to stop
using drugs.

"All you're doing is supporting their drug habit and you're taking away an
important thing from them for when they may get healthy," said Priscilla
Smith, deputy director of litigation for the Center for Reproductive Law and
Policy.

Proponents of the program say they are well aware that the women may simply
spend the money on drugs.

"I don't care what they do -- as long as they get their tubes tied," said
Frank Peard, a 70-year-old retiree who helped arrange for Crack billboards
to be put up in Fort Pierce, Fla., and has contributed $400 to the cause.
"As far as I'm concerned, they could buy a gun and shoot themselves with it.
That's the least of the evils. The evil is producing these children when
they don't plan to take care of them."