The horrifying story of “crack babies” was used in the 1980s to
fuel anti-drug sentiments. In addition there was a decidedly
racial element to the stories as well, as urban black women,
also of course depicted as women abusing the welfare system,
were the focus of stories about babies born with no hope,
addicted to crack cocaine and permanently robbed of their mental
powers. The story of crack babies was a heavy element of the
“Just Say No” campaign of the Reagan administration. The
sentiment that was raised by the story was one of outrage
towards poor urban blacks, and one of outrage at all systems
that were designed to help poor urban blacks because it was felt
that these people were not capable of helping themselves and
they were just abusing the system for selfish purposes and
innocent children were suffering because of it. To top it off,
it was being said that “crack babies” would never be able to
care for themselves and that they would be a significant “tax
burden” on the American tax payer. All of this