Slandering the Unborn

[SummerMadness]

Slandering the Unborn

Legislative intrusion into the womb has a long history in the United States, and nowhere is this paternalism more forceful than when illegal drugs are part of the equation. If the country’s war on drugs functions as a system of social control, that control is doubly exercised when a fetus is involved.

Today, with some notable exceptions, the nation is reacting to the opioid epidemic by humanizing people with addictions — depicting them not as hopeless junkies, but as people battling substance use disorders — while describing the crisis as a public health emergency. That depth of sympathy for a group of people who are overwhelmingly white was nowhere to be seen during the 1980s and 90s, when a cheap, smokable form of cocaine known as crack was ravaging black communities across the country.

News organizations shoulder much of the blame for the moral panic that cast mothers with crack addictions as irretrievably depraved and the worst enemies of their children. The New York Times, The Washington Post, Time, Newsweek and others further demonized black women "addicts" by wrongly reporting that they were giving birth to a generation of neurologically damaged children who were less than fully human and who would bankrupt the schools and social service agencies once they came of age.

The myth of the "crack baby" — crafted from equal parts bad science and racist stereotypes — was debunked by the turn of the 2000s. But by then, the discredited notion that cocaine was uniquely and permanently damaging to the unborn had been written into social policies and the legal code. By the time the epidemic was over, the view that the fetus was a person with rights superseding the mother’s had gained considerable traction in practice.

 

[Ana the Ist]

Slandering the Unborn

I'm not sure what point this story is trying to make? That we should be less sympathetic to opioid addicts? That we should shame the media for how it acted in the past?

 

[Radagast]

Slandering the Unborn

Not sure what your point is. Maternal drug and alcohol abuse during pregnancy can actually harm their unborn baby, and "crack babies" aka "Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome" really is a thing.

 

[SummerMadness]

Not sure what your point is. Maternal drug and alcohol abuse during pregnancy can actually harm their unborn baby, and "crack babies" aka "Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome" really is a thing.

You might want to do some reading again, neonatal abstinence syndrome does not happen in "crack babies." And what do you mean by my point? The editorial merely gives caution to creating police based on media sensationalism and poor scientific rigor. Much like Reefer Madness of the 1930s and prohibition in the 1920s, propagandizing drugs and alcohol leads to bad policies and the creation of other social problems (e.g., the rise organized crime).

 

[dgiharris]

You might want to do some reading again, neonatal abstinence syndrome does not happen in "crack babies." And what do you mean by my point? The editorial merely gives caution to creating police based on media sensationalism and poor scientific rigor. Much like Reefer Madness of the 1930s and prohibition in the 1920s, propagandizing drugs and alcohol leads to bad policies and the creation of other social problems (e.g., the rise organized crime).

Seriously what are you on about?

Doing drugs, ANY drugs, is harmful to the fetus.

Sure, "neonatal abstinence syndrome" *not sure about that but I will google fu later* may not happen in crack babies, but there are a host of other horrifically bad things that happen to crack babies, alcohol babies, smoking babies, meth babies, etc.

Don't quibble with word games. Seriously, it makes your argument disingenuous. Smoking crack while pregnant is harmful, VERY HARMFUL, to the fetus.

and don't use argumentative tricks like defining harm as a singular concept like "neonatal abstinence syndrome" and then crafting an argument against that as if that is the only argument to be had. Having done some google fu, it turns out that neonatal abstinence syndrome is in fact a thing.

Can you link to medical studies that prove it is not a thing (as you keep claiming).

In any event, I have no idea what your argument is.

Lastly, it is a strategic mistake of the highest order to try to argue that crack babies and pregnant women that smoke crack are discriminated against more so than mothers that abuse other drugs???

This is a ridiculously silly argument to engage in because no sane person has any sympathy for pregnant women that smokes crack.

There are plenty of legitimate arguments to be had about discrimination, there are plenty of poster child anecdotes detailing racial inequality that you can argue. So why on God's green earth would you try to defend the indefensible?

 

[SummerMadness]

How about the facts?

Crack Babies: Twenty Years Later

During the 80's and 90's, the nation's health specialists panicked over the growing number of so-called "crack babies" — children exposed to crack cocaine in utero. These children were said to be doomed to lives of physical and mental disability. But, 20 years later, many of the children who were perceived to be "at-risk" are proving the predictions wrong as young adults. Host Michel Martin speaks to Mary Barr, an activist who is vocal about her own drug abuse during pregnancy, and Nisa Beceriklisoy, her daughter. Also joining the conversation is Dr. Carl Bell, a clinical professor of psychiatry and public health at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Crack Babies: The Epidemic That Wasn't

When the use of crack cocaine became a nationwide epidemic in the 1980s and ’90s, there were widespread fears that prenatal exposure to the drug would produce a generation of severely damaged children. Newspapers carried headlines like "Cocaine: A Vicious Assault on a Child," "Crack's Toll Among Babies: A Joyless View" and "Studies: Future Bleak for Crack Babies."

But now researchers are systematically following children who were exposed to cocaine before birth, and their findings suggest that the encouraging stories of Ms. H.'s daughters are anything but unusual. So far, these scientists say, the long-term effects of such exposure on children’s brain development and behavior appear relatively small.

Decades Later, Drugs Didn't Hold 'Crack Babies' Back

During the crack epidemic of the 1980s and '90s, healthcare workers feared that children born to addicted mothers had little hope for a healthy future. But a newly released study suggests that initial concerns about so-called crack babies may have been misplaced, and that the biggest issue that could hurt these kids was not drug exposure, but poverty.

No one is arguing that doing drugs during pregnancy is good or should be encouraged, but crafting policies based on incomplete data has had a negative legacy that we're only now beginning to address. The crack baby is a myth, it doesn't seem right, but it is a myth. If we want to start moving forward in a more positive direction, simply accepting "conventional wisdom" that is wrong is not the way to proceed. This topic is not about discrimination, it's about drug policy, public health, women's rights, and criminal justice reform.

 

[Radagast]

Smoking crack while pregnant is harmful, VERY HARMFUL, to the fetus.

Indeed it is. See, for example:

Fetal Cocaine Exposure: Neurologic Effects and Sensory-Motor Delays

Developmental and behavioral consequences of prenatal cocaine exposure: a review

Developmental Consequences of Fetal Exposure to Drugs: What We Know and What We Still Must Learn

What are the effects of maternal cocaine use?

As with other forms of damage to the unborn child, a good home environment can do a great deal to ameliorate these problems. However, that is often difficult to achieve for the children of drug addicts.

 

[SummerMadness]

Indeed it is. See, for example:

Fetal Cocaine Exposure: Neurologic Effects and Sensory-Motor Delays

Developmental and behavioral consequences of prenatal cocaine exposure: a review

Developmental Consequences of Fetal Exposure to Drugs: What We Know and What We Still Must Learn

What are the effects of maternal cocaine use?

As with other forms of damage to the unborn child, a good home environment can do a great deal to ameliorate these problems. However, that is often difficult to achieve for the children of drug addicts.

From the links you provided:

[N]umerous studies have employed the Brazelton Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale (BNBAS) to assess the neurobehavioral sequelae in the first month of life. Findings have been widely divergent and sometimes contradictory. Several studies have reported depressed interactive behavior, impaired responses to environmental stimuli, and deficits in orientation, and in motor and state regulation in cocaine exposed cohorts. Other well designed studies, however, found no significant deficits on the BNBAS.

Over the past two decades, cocaine use during pregnancy has received focused attention, with initial reports suggesting the potential for teratogenic effects of prenatal exposure on the developing fetus. However, many of these reports generated exaggerated and eventually unsubstantiated concerns regarding a hypothesized ‘crack baby syndrome’. As a result, several large prospective studies were initiated to assess the short-and/or long-term outcomes of children with prenatal cocaine exposure (PCE), many of which continue to investigate potential biological and environmental vulnerabilities in exposed populations from birth into adolescence and young adulthood.

Dire predictions of reduced intelligence and social skills in babies born to mothers who used crack cocaine while pregnant during the 1980s—so-called "crack babies"—were grossly exaggerated. However, the fact that most of these children do not show serious overt deficits should not be overinterpreted to indicate that there is no cause for concern.

No one is arguing there is no effect of drug use in pregnancy, but the effects of crack on fetuses and its effect on childhood development were overblown. Nonetheless, many policies enacted were based on this overblown idea. Next time you post some articles, take some time to actually read them.

 

[Radagast]

Next time you post some articles, take some time to actually read them.

Next time you reply, please don't be so offensive; I read them. And you're quoting a little selectively, those articles report significant long-term negative effects of cocaine use:

"Consistent with our earlier findings, infants exposed to cocaine persisted in lagging behind the comparison group on both Mental and Motor Scale average standard scores."

"recent well-controlled prospective studies suggest that PCE does in fact affect fetal physical growth, resulting in an increased likelihood of premature delivery and generalized growth retardation (that is, decreased birth weight, shorter length and smaller head circumference)"

"recent studies of children between toddlerhood and elementary school age have reported main effects of PCE on language skills, even after controlling for multiple social, medical and environmental risk factors"

"scientists are now finding that exposure to cocaine during fetal development may lead to subtle, yet significant, later deficits in some children. These include behavior problems (e.g., difficulties with self-regulation) and deficits in some aspects of cognitive performance, information processing, and sustained attention to tasks—abilities that are important for the realization of a child’s full potential. Some deficits persist into the later years, with prenatally exposed adolescents showing increased risk for subtle problems with language and memory."