Kampala, Uganda, Sep 24, 2007 / 08:25 am
A columnist for a Ugandan newspaper has called on the government of the East African country to ignore the Catholic Church’s views and get on with the business of legalizing abortion.
In his weekly column, Roving Eye, published in the Sept. 23 edition of the Kampala-based newspaper The Monitor, Kevin O’Connor attempts to discredit the Church’s teachings on the dignity of life and makes outrageous comments about Church leadership. Interestingly, O’Connor presents the same utilitarian arguments that the US heard as it considered whether or not to legalize abortion.
O’Connor cites statistics from a study conducted by the U.S.-based Guttmacher Institute. The study indicates that about 1,200 Ugandan women die yearly as the result of unsafe abortions, either performed by women themselves or by unqualified people for profit. Another 65,000 women who have had abortions suffer complications that require medical care but they do not get treatment in a medical facility.
“Do not expect to get any sensible guidance on these issues from the anti-abortion Catholic Church,” O’Connor writes. “But, then again, the history of the Catholic Church is littered with wrongdoing and misdeeds.”