Description

“Don’t Let Your Pregnancy Get in the Way of Your Drug Addiction”: CRACK and the Ideological Construction of Addicted Women

The recent appearance of nonprofit organizations attempting to regulate the sexuality and reproductive capabilities of certain women demands attention. This research focuses on a nonprofit organization, CRACK, and its discursive representation of poor women and women of color in an effort to gain legitimacy for their population control policy. Using grounded theory to analyze data gathered from the CRACK website, mainstream newspaper articles, and television interviews, the author identifies themes that malign certain women’s sexuality and considers broader implications affecting women’s ability to determine their reproductive and procreative well-being.

reproductive justice, population control, sexuality, procreation, nonprofit, women of color, reproduction, crack cocaine

Citation: Social Justice Vol. 38, No. 3 (2011): 125-144