Children were flooding the city’s foster care system, including thousands of babies born to mothers who used drugs. News outlets sounded the alarm of America’s “crack babies,” who were said to carry serious physical and behavioral defects. These reports stemmed from a single medical study, based on twenty-three babies, which has since been debunked. Long-term research shows that prenatal exposure to crack causes subtle—if any—differences in adult outcomes. But back in the 1980s, pregnant drug users became the target of law enforcement. As more mothers went to prison, the number of foster
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