Is there a way to avoid having to select in order to get the UID after inserting a new row?

get_location_uid.py

def get_location_uid(name, country_code):
    # TODO: DRY, figure out a better way to do this
    cursor.execute("SELECT uid FROM location WHERE name = '%s' AND country_code = '%s'" % (name, country_code))
    result = cursor.fetchone()
    if result is not None:
        return result[0]
    cursor.execute("INSERT INTO location (name, country_code) VALUES ('%s', '%s')" % (name, country_code))
    db.commit()
    cursor.execute("SELECT uid FROM location WHERE name = '%s' AND country_code = '%s'" % (name, country_code))
    result = cursor.fetchone()
    return result[0]

Here's the schema for the location table:

CREATE TABLE location (
  uid bytea PRIMARY KEY NOT NULL DEFAULT generate_uid() CHECK (octet_length(uid)=12),
  name text NOT NULL,
  country_code text NOT NULL,
  CONSTRAINT loc_constraint UNIQUE (name, country_code)
);