ABSTRACT
The discourse on poverty is an exercise in othering. Intractable poverty had to be explained in that way to sustain the core myth of US political culture: unlimited class mobility. The war on poverty becomes the war on poor women and children. And, since poor women, addicts and children often lack political advocates, few object when the programs designed to help them are cut. The problems affecting the quality of medical care offered to “responsible” low-income women escalate when it comes to women who are “at risk.” Poor, single mothers are at risk for the same reasons that other poor people and people of color are. Many pregnant addicts fighting to get into treatment are driven by a fear that child welfare agencies will take their babies from them, as they do in many US cities when the child’s urine shows traces of drugs.
