LONDON, March 15, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The UK’s Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor spoke out against the Labour Party Monday after all three major parties’ leaders gave their position on abortion in a Cosmopolitan magazine interview published Monday.
Conservative Party leader Michael Howard said he favoured a restriction on late term abortions, and would invite debate on the issue in parliament if elected Prime Minister in this spring’s general election. Tony Blair, on the other hand, said “you should not criminalise a woman” who chooses to abort her child.
“I am very pleased that this has been brought out on to the public agenda and that there is going to be a debate about it, both in the lead-up to and after the next election,” Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor said in a statement to Catholic bishops. “It is a key issue. The position is that we are totally opposed to abortion.”
Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor commended Howard’s pledge to roll back the legal age for abortion from 24 to 20 weeks. “This is something we can commend on the way to a full abandonment of abortion,” he said.
Although the Cardinal made mention of several issues important to Catholic voters such as marriage and education, he said respect for life took primacy over all other concerns.
“As bishops, we are not going to suggest people support one particular party,” Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor emphasized. “A Catholic would not be expected to vote for a Conservative with liberal views on abortion. There has been a notion in the past that Catholics would be more in support of the Labour Party because they were working-class people who felt that the Labour Party stood for many of their needs,” he said. “I’m not so sure that would be quite as true today.”
Labour MP Geraldine Smith, meanwhile, who in the past also called for restrictions on late-term abortion, welcomed Howard’s support for the same. “In one respect Michael Howard is in touch with public opinion on this one but I do not think it is a party issue, it is one that goes beyond party boundaries.”
“Sometimes people say religion and politics do not mix and they should not mix,” the Cardinal explained. “Religion is about the love of God and the love of our neighbour. It is clearly the second of those where religion and politics do mix.”
See BBC coverage including a link to a video interview with Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor.
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