Bishop Philip Egan of Portsmouth
Photo:Bishop Philip Egan Twitter A British bishop said he was relieved by the election defeat of political parties committed to liberalising Britain’s abortion laws, but he was “not particularly enthused” by the Conservative Party agenda.
In the December 12 general election, the Conservatives of Prime Minister Boris Johnson gained 47 seats, the largest increase for his party since Margaret Thatcher won a third term in 1987, giving him a Commons majority of 80 members of Parliament.
The opposition Labour Party suffered its worst defeat since 1935, and the Liberal Democrats, the third-largest party, gained only 11 seats.
Bishop Philip Egan of Portsmouth said he was relieved by the result because he had been “horrified” by manifesto promises made by the losing parties to strip criminal sanctions from the abortion law so that the procedure was available on demand.
Agenda
The two parties had “an anti-life agenda, particularly on abortion, so I am delighted that that direction has been stopped,” he said.
However, Bishop Egan said he had concerns about social care of the most needy and noted that the “false anthropologies” underpinning the radical social policies of the other parties also were operative within the Conservative Party.
“You have got to be vigilant, because things are coming through the education authorities, the health service and the social services,” Bishop Egan said. “What was difficult was that the other parties had tuned into those ideologies and wanted to further them more.”