Kampala — The editorial in the government- owned New Vision (17 September 2007) got as close as it could to saying, "legalise abortion now" without actually saying it. Perhaps circumlocution (verbally going round in circles) is a feature of stateowned newspapers.

What the editorial actually stated was, "Although abortion is illegal and a criminal offence, it is important to save the lives of the unfortunate women who find themselves in this regrettable situation (i.e. not getting proper medical treatment when suffering post-abortion complications because of fear of being arrested and prosecuted).

Such women should be enabled to get medical treatment without fear of prosecution." In other words, legalise abortion. So please, New Vision, come out and say what you actually mean in future, rather than "going around the bush".

And on this subject of abortion, the New Vision has my total support. The starting point for its arguments was a Ministry of Health report (Road map for accelerating the reduction of maternal and neonatal mortality and morbidity in Uganda) based on a study carried out by the US-based Guttmacher Institute.

Frightening statistics and methods The study provides the appalling information that as many as 1200 Ugandan women die every year as a result of unsafe abortions. Also, "Roughly one in five of the estimated 297,000 women who have an abortion every year - a total of 65,000 women - suffer complications that require medical care but do not get treatment in a medical facility." These deaths, and the post-abortion complications, mainly result from abortion being illegal in Uganda.

The result is that women perform abortions by all sorts of means. Some overdose on aspirins; some swallow detergents like Omo; others stick coat hangers - or the plant Nanda, which has bad toxic effects - up their private parts. But increasingly abortions are performed by unqualified people for profit. Catholic Church stand Do not expect to get any sensible guidance on these issues from the anti-abortion Catholic Church. But, then again, the history of the Catholic Church is littered with wrongdoing and misdeeds. For example, there was the remarkable silence of the then Pope over the genocidal policies of the Nazis.

And talking of genocide, surely the anti-contraception, anticondom stance of the Catholic Church, at a time of the HIV/Aids pandemic and of unwanted children being born into already large families, is itself, akin to genocide. This last point receives support from the Ministry of Health report. Each year, about 775,000 Ugandan women are pregnant against their wishes - four in 10 pregnancies in Uganda are unintended.

Ugandan women say they want five children, but on average, end up having seven - two more than they want. For those of these women that are Catholic, we can see that the church bars one door (contraception) to them, and when they fall pregnant against their wishes, then bars another door (abortion).

I hope the various Popes and Cardinals, who have been responsible for this doctrinal nonsense, burn in hell. The real choice for policymakers A previous Roving Eye column concluded is that the choice facing policy-makers in Uganda is not between a world of abortion and a world of no abortion.

The actual choice is between: l A world where abortion is legalised and is in the open. Where pregnant women receive professional counselling about all the options open to them. And if they decide, after due thought, to go ahead with an abortion, it is performed by a qualified doctor who has no objection to the practice.

OR l A world where abortions result from aspirins, Omo, Nanda, knitting needles and coat hangers. Or are done for profit by people who are no more qualified to perform an abortion than a fat traffic policeman. Legalise now From our religious friends, we hear far too much about the rights of the unborn foetus, and not nearly enough about the rights of living Ugandan women.

Let us reduce their daily horror by legalising abortion in Uganda, and legalising it now.