1995 survey in the US found that between 30,000 and 160,000 cases of prenatal exposure to cocaine occur each year. By one estimate, in the US 100,000 babies are born each year after having been exposed to crack cocaine in utero. An estimated 7.5 million PCE children are living in the US. Pregnant women in urban parts of the US and who are of a low socioeconomic status use cocaine more often. However, the real prevalence of cocaine use by pregnant women is unknown. Legal and ethical issues The harm to a child from PCE has implications for public policy and law. Some US states have pressed charges against pregnant women who use drugs, including assault with a deadly weapon, corruption of a minor, manslaughter, child abuse, and distribution of drugs to a minor. However these approaches have generally been rejected in the courts on the basis that a fetus is not legally a child. Between 1985 and 2001, more than 200 women in over 30 US states faced prosecution for drug use during pregnancy. In South Carolina, a woman who used crack in her third trimester of pregnancy was sentenced to prison for eight years when her child was born with cocaine metabolites in its system. The Supreme Court of South Carolina upheld this conviction. As of 2013, all but one of the women prosecuted in the US for drug use while pregnant have won their cases on appeal. From 1989 to 1994, in the midst of public outcry about cocaine babies, the Medical University of South Carolina tested pregnant women for cocaine, reporting those who tested positive to the police. The US Supreme Court found the policy to be unacceptable on constitutional grounds in 2001. Some advocates argue that punishment for crack-using pregnant women as a means to treat their addiction is a violation of their right to privacy. According to studies, fear of prosecution and having children taken away is associated with a refusal to seek prenatal care or medical treatment. Some nonprofit organizations aim to prevent PCE with birth control. One such initiative, Project Prevention, offers women addicted to cocaine money as an incentive to undergo long-term birth control or, frequently, sterilization—an approach which has led to public outcry from those who consider this practice to be eugenics. Social stigma Children who were exposed to crack prenatally faced social stigma as babies and school-aged children; some