Project Prevention: Mothers and Children Speak Out

The above video was prepared by National Advocates for Pregnant Women as part of their work challenging Project Prevention, a U.S.-based organization that offers current and former drug users $300 to get sterilized or use long-acting birth control. With funding from right-wing billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife, Project Prevention has taken its program overseas to Western Europe, Kenya, and Australia. This program’s primary effect is to spread dangerous and dehumanizing claims about pregnant women, drug users, and their children and to advance a narrative of individual blame that is, we believe, designed to undermine support for universal health care and other social welfare programs.

With the encouragement and support of the Open Society Foundations, National Advocates for Pregnant Women has continued working closely with Release, another of our grantees, supporting their largely successful efforts in preventing Project Prevention from gaining a foothold in the UK. In response to Project Prevention’s advances, NAPW developed this video to counter the group's many false claims about pregnant women and mothers who have used drugs.