Sterilizing Addicted Women

STANTONA mother addicted to heroin will become the second woman to agree
to sterilization in exchange for money offered by an antidrug activist,
the woman making the controversial offers said Friday.

Barbara Harris, founder of CRACK (Children Requiring a Caring Kommunity),
said she will pay $200 to an Anaheim heroin addict to undergo a tubal
ligation. Harris said the woman she identified as 32yearold Yvonne of
Anaheim recently gave birth to her sixth child addicted to heroin. Harris
said she founded CRACK to stem the number of babies born to drug addicts in
California. She announced her first offer of money to a mother who agreed
to permanent birth control last month. Birthcontrol advocates and
bioethical experts have questioned Harris's plan, saying it may convince
poor women to give up their right to bear children. The first woman to take
up CRACK's tubal ligation offer was 28yearold Sheila Horton of Los
Angeles, whose five older children were all born addicted to drugs. Harris
has adopted four of eight drugexposed children born to one woman and
lobbied for legislation to make it a crime to give birth to a drugaddicted
baby.

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