Buried in Pope Francis’ encyclical on climate change, released Thursday, was a bold exhortation that pro-life conservatives support action to stop global warming on moral grounds.

“[C]oncern for the protection of nature is also incompatible with the justification of abortion,” he wrote. “How can we genuinely teach the importance of concern for other vulnerable beings, however troublesome or inconvenient that may be, if we fail to protect a human embryo, even when its presence is uncomfortable and creates difficulties?”


The line seemed out of place in an American political context, where anti-abortion Republicans are on the opposite end of the spectrum from Democratic environmentalists, but the pope is only the latest in a growing number of Christian conservatives who see a connection between pro-life views and environmentalism.