Shrinking Our Way to Mediocrity

Abortion has been and continues to be a disaster story for Black communities in the Diaspora. The number of abortions performed annually on Black women in the Diaspora coupled with Black-on-Black homicide, and a lower than required replacement rate in the Black population in the Diaspora serves as an ill omen for the future of Black people in the Diaspora.

Abortion on demand in the Caribbean has already contributed to a demographic shift in favor of Asians in Guyana and Trinidad. Demographic trends seen in Trinidad and Guyana may very well become the wave of the future if the decrease in the Black population is not arrested urgently. In the US, Hispanics with their healthy birth rates and a phenomenal increase in illegal immigrants have easily surpassed African Americans as the major minority in the US.

In Brazil and in other South American and European countries where Blacks reside, abortion coupled with Black-on-Black homicide, state violence against Black people and high mortality rates due to degenerative diseases like diabetes, high blood, pressure, cancer, and heart disease are negatively impacting the Black population.

Abortion is one of the culture wars issues that will bring sinners and saint on to the battlefield ready to shed blood if necessary. Moralists from the Abrahamic faith persuasions are adamant that abortion is murder of the innocent -plain and simple- and therefore constitutes a heinous sin against the innocent and against God. Abortion is therefore regarded as a moral red line than cannot be crossed by nations seeking divine favor.

On the surface this moral argument sounds very persuasive and unanswerable. However, as we dig beneath the surface of this argument, another very disturbing perspective emerges that few Biblical moralists are willing to confront rationally. Yahweh the deity of the Bible is the apex abortionist of all times. It is inconceivable to think that there were no pregnant women who were drowned in the Flood or were burnt to a crisp in Sodom and Gomorrah.

While I would agree with the Biblical moralists that there is an element of inhumanity associated with the practice of abortion, I am still willing to take the Biblical moralists to task for not acknowledging that the deity of the Bible goes much further than the most prolific abortionists of our day. Yahweh kills pregnant mother and the babies in their womb. He kills little infants by flood, fire, and the sword. The Bible goes so far as to pronounce a blessing on those who dash the heads of little Babylonian children against rocks. (Psalm 137:9)

Yahweh the deity of the Old Testament is clearly an equal opportunity killer who will dispatch both the baby in the womb and the baby at the breast into the great beyond with alacrity and dispatch. This in my opinion defangs the moral argument against abortion. Additionally, the world would certainly be a better place if the mothers of Napoleon Joseph Stalin, Vladimir Lenin, Adolf Hitler, Mao Tse-Tung, and Pol Pot had all been treated to a state-of-the-art abortion in their respective countries. Feel free to enlarge this list at your convenience.

Every woman should have the right to freely decide what she will do with her body. If a pregnancy threatens the life of the mother to abort or not to abort is a no-brainer. If the health of the fetus is compromised to the point where a very low quality of life is predicted, an abortion may be the right decision. Grey areas would include situations in which the mother is not psychologically of financially ready for parenthood. Abortion should never be the first option in these grey area instances.

Faith communities have played a wonderful role in the past in helping mothers decide to keep their pregnancies. This supporting role could very well sway the balance in the direction of the pro-life platform. At a time when churches are hemorrhaging members at an alarming rate, the adoption of these new mothers and their infants could prove to be a needed lifeline for many churches.

There are also hundreds of thousands of Black couples who are unable to bear their own children. Adoption agencies could be updated in Black communities that would connect many of these childless Black couple with expectant mothers who are unconvinced that they are ready for the lifelong commitment of parenthood.

It should come as no surprise that issue of abortion is gaining such traction in tandem with the realization that most countries of the world have dropped below the 2.1 replacement rate needed to negate a downward population spiral. African women unlike their counterparts in the Diaspora are replacing their populations and then some. I see no reason why some of Africa’s excess population could not be resettled in the Caribbean to ensure continued Black demographic hegemony.

The downward spiral in the Black population of the Caribbean is an urgent issue that needs to be addressed by governments in the Caribbean. History is replete with examples of demographic replacements as one ethnic group either displaces another ethnic group militarily or by out-breeding the indigenous population. Black women in the Diaspora need to do a rethink on the abortion issue precisely because no ethic group can shrink its way to greatness.

Lenrod Nzulu Baraka is the founder of Afro Caribbean Spiritual Teaching Center and the author of The Rebirth of Black Civilization: Making Africa and the Caribbean Great Again.