Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) slammed Republican hypocrisy on abortion and climate change in a series of tweets Friday afternoon.

In the wake of passage of Alabama’s strict new anti-abortion law, Ocasio-Cortez argued that “the GOP extremists trying to invoke ‘the unborn’ to jail people for abortion” are hypocrites for their opposition to climate action.

“OH right,” she wrote in her first tweet, “you want to burn fossil fuels til there’s hell on Earth.”

To the GOP extremists trying to invoke “the unborn” to jail people for abortion: Where are you on climate change? OH right, you want to burn fossil fuels til there’s hell on Earth. If they were truthful about their motives, they’d be consistent in their principles. They’re not. — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) May 17, 2019

The idea that those who believe in protecting the unborn should support climate action and a clean environment is not new. In fact, such action has been the focus of environmentally-minded evangelical Christians for over a decade.


“Pollution harms the unborn, causing damage that last’s a lifetime,” explains the Evangelical Environmental Network, which supports a focus on caring for God’s creation — the so-called “Creation Care” movement. “It is time to stop poisoning the womb and our environment and create a cleaner, brighter future for our children, free from pollution.”

In Ocasio-Cortez’s second tweet, she echoed that concern, saying, “The GOP doesn’t care about babies at all — especially brown, black, or poor ones.” If they did, the congresswoman argued, they would oppose “death+caging of babies on our border,” while backing a comprehensive health plan “so ALL can get prenatal care” and supporting a “Green New Deal or at LEAST have a real climate plan.”

The GOP has stepped up attacks and misrepresentations of the Green New Deal — which call for a rapid transition to a carbon-free economy — since the New York freshman launched the resolution with Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) back in February.

At the same time, the few congressional Republicans willing to admit climate change might be a serious problem offer no real solutions. Instead, they repeat poll-tested words like “innovation” while opposing the kind of near-term carbon targets that climate scientists say are needed to avert catastrophic impacts.

In her final tweet, Ocasio-Cortez said that the GOP is trying “to turn the United States into a far-right Christian theocracy” — and doing so in a “dishonest” way.


“At least be forthright about your desire to subvert and dismantle our democracy into a creepy theological order led by a mad king,” she added

Calling Trump a “mad king” may be a reference to HBO’s “Game of Thrones,” which will air its series finale Sunday. Ocasio-Cortez is a big fan of the show and has made many comparisons between the show and U.S. politics.

In the show, the “mad king” is King Aerys II Targaryen, who, when his city was being overrun by rebels, infamously gave the order to set it on fire and kill the half million inhabitants: “Burn them all. Burn them in their homes. Burn them in their beds.”

Certainly the pro-pollution policies of Trump and Republican — if they aren’t reversed soon — will lead to catastrophe for all babies born now and for decades to come.

The recent passage of strict abortion bans on the state level has sparked the scrutinization of other policy priorities that affect children. For example, Alabama has the fourth worst infant mortality rate in the country, an issue that the state legislature hasn’t moved aggressively to address. The state also has high rates of child poverty and food insecurity — about a quarter of the children in Alabama live in poverty, and more than one in five children in the state grow up hungry.