BY KENNETH MUFUKA
he name “cultural war” was given to a nasty disagreement between Democrats and Republicans in the 1992 election. President George Bush felt that the American people were not dumb enough to vote for Bill Clinton, a womaniser, a draft dodger, and a street wise kid. He, George Bush came from a wealthy New England family, had served in the foreign service for 30 years and had been a war hero, having been shot from a flight by the Japanese and survived. The issue was that Clinton had no culture, and perhaps no religion.
Clinton, who was facing accusations of lechery from 23 women, retorted with the famous quote. “It is the economy, stupid! People do not eat class.” Bush was defeated and suffered from a deep depression.
During the last year, a lackadaisical president Joe Biden has been struggling on every front to hold the galloping inflation, now at 30% at bay without success. He promised Black Lives Matter that he would appoint a black woman to the supreme court, if blacks supported his bid for president.
This promise he has kept. But the economy continues to slide towards hyper-inflation.
A bombshell drops
The Democrats wanted so badly to change the subject from inflation to something that would make black voters angry enough to stay loyal to the party.
Yesterday, a decision by the Supreme Court, purporting to ban federally protected abortion rights was leaked by a judicial scoundrel. The leak says that in December 2021, after hearing the arguments in a Mississippi case, the three Donald Trump appointed judges all voted to withdraw federal protection from abortion.
The case, known as Roe versus Wade, 1973, was cooked from a reading of the 14th amendment. The amendment is known as the “Equal Protection Amendment.” Part B of the amendment reads as follows. “Nor shall any state deprive any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law.”
At that time, the Court read this clause to mean that abortionists, after the advice and consultation of their doctors shall do whatever is deemed necessary to carry out a health procedure to protect the woman. Democrats have latched on to this phraseology to argue that abortionists are doing is to protect the health of the woman.
Republicans think that since a child is conceived at conception, it, in all intents and purposes assumes the characteristics of a human and must be protected as a human foetus. Inn any case, the necessity for abortion has receded since the invention of the day after contraceptive pill.
But abortionists insist that they have a right to do whatever they see fit to defend the “woman’s health”.
The issue was originally a Roman Catholic issue, but evangelicals and Republicans found a moral cause that would make them look virtuous.
As we speak, 23 states have passed laws making abortion hard to come by. One argument by Republicans was that taxpayers need not pay for the consequences of a sinner’s behaviour. They said that the logic of nature was that a woman who sleeps with a man may become pregnant. She must carry the burden of child rearing. Democrats argue that unwanted babies are a worse burden than no children at all.
President Biden has made a call to war. The Democrats are being asked to pay US$3 per stalwart supporter so they can carry a propaganda war in the press against the Court or get Congress to reverse the Court’s decision.
Democrats say that people of colour will suffer more than others because, being in the poor economic zone, they cannot afford the rich women’s abortion clinics in the Bahamas.
Surprisingly, African Americans and Hispanics generally regard unborn life as sacrosanct and do not approve of abortions as a norm in life. Abortion is a borrowed culture from the higher economic classes.
In any case, Uncle Sam made a bargain when he passed the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (1969) Act. As it stands, a teenage single mother lives better than a first-year college graduate employee. A free two bedroom federally approved house is secured on her behalf, a cash stipend of up to US$1 000 per month is thrown just for the heck of it, electric bills are paid and if the child needs day care, it is thrown is as well.
So, either way, abortion or not, a teenage girl has a safety net. Republicans point out that it is the baby daddy who has the worst of both worlds. If the baby daddy confesses to some responsibility, the Sheriff is in the habit of throwing him in a jailhouse from time to time for non-payment of baby support. The first jailhouse visit lasts for 48 hours. A second visit to a courthouse may make a racist judge mad. That can cost an 18-year-old boy a jailhouse visit lasting six months.
Whether the boy is in a jailhouse or not, the bill accumulates, add some processing fees, and black boys will have paid heavily for their sexual habits.
It is a matter of six and half a dozen. Democrats have encouraged misguided habits among the poor and vulnerable. Republicans have earned a reputation for meanness and indifference. At present, Democrats believe that by singing a song entitled, “Abortion rights are fundamental to people of colour,” they will make black people mad enough to return them to power in November this year.
The reasoning is that if Democrats have an assurance of the black vote, which makes up 30%, then all they must do is to split the white vote and they are home free and dry.
- Professor Kenneth Mufuka will be on a lecture tour, beginning in Kenya. He will conduct a workshop for pastors in Kenya on: Suffering under grace: The African American experience. Archbishop Manasseh Mankuleyo of the Faith Evangelical Church will preside. Contact information in Zimbabwe is: 77-694-167. In Masvingo contact Fabian Mabaya.