Abortion has been legal in the US since Obama was 12 years old

Nov 05, 2009

EDITOR—In his letter lambasting President Obama’s policy on healthcare on Tuesday, it seems Paul Kokoski is using the New Vision as a platform for his own propaganda!

EDITOR—In his letter lambasting President Obama’s policy on healthcare on Tuesday, it seems Paul Kokoski is using the New Vision as a platform for his own propaganda!

Obama has yet to unveil a specific healthcare bill, but the most he has said is that any healthcare reform must cover Americans currently without healthcare, lower the cost of healthcare insurance and eliminate the so-called “pre-existing condition”.

The US insurance companies use the term ‘pre-existing condition’ to deny healthcare coverage to Americans including perfectly healthy children who happened to be chubby as happened to a four-month- old child in Colorado recently.

By the way, some women who were raped are also denied insurance coverage because they are said to have pre-existing ‘condition’ as happened to a 38-year-old woman in Ithaca, New York. Meanwhile, abortion has been legal in the US since the US Supreme Court decided Roe Vs. Wade in 1973.

Whether abortion is funded by US taxpayers or not does not change the fact that it destroys life, period. Obama has said he will not use taxpayers’ money to fund abortion, and we have no reason not to believe him.

The question is whether abortion should be considered in certain cases where the health of the would-be mother is ascertained by physicians to be at grave risk or when the woman was raped.

Kokoski makes it sound as if abortion was being introduced by Obama when in fact it has been legal in the US since Obama was just barely 12 years old. And about denying care to the elderly at the end of life?

That is nonsensical fear mongering started by Republicans who do not want US healthcare reform because of their support for the insurance industry that is gouging US taxpayers. In fact, the so-called healthcare bill is still to be debated assuming it gets to that point, but the kind of wilful misinformation that has been used by Republicans in the US should not be foisted on Ugandans.

As a Canadian, Kokoski can afford to say whatever he wants to say knowing well that the Canadian heathcare covers every single Canadian including the homeless man and woman on the street. Yet, shamelessly, he wants to deny the same kind of healthcare benefits to many Americans who are without heathcare and are suffering everyday because of lack of it.

Opiyo Oloya
Toronto, Canada

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