Cindy, I don't think this is just your impression.
Very few Republican members of Congress have a good
voting record on the environment, as measured by
League of Conservation Voters ratings.

One of the Republicans in Congress with the best
environmental record, Jim Leach, is also pro-choice. I
imagine that most of the other relatively "green"
Republicans are as well, because they tend to
represent moderate, suburban districts in the
northeast.

My Rockefeller Republican father was puzzled and
dismayed by the GOP's radical anti-environmental turn
in the 1980s and 1990s. As he said, true conservatives
should be concerned with conserving natural resources.
Unfortunately, it seems like today's GOP leadership
goes out of its way to do harm to the environment on
many fronts.

This is as offensive to my moral standards as abortion
is to Peggy Murdock's. Many thousands of American
lives end prematurely every year because of
environmental contaminants. Others live with
diminished quality of life (e.g. skyrocketing rates of
asthma in children). Not to mention the harm done to
children by mercury pollution. For reasons
unfathomable to me, GOP leaders who claim to care for
the lives of unborn children resist basic,
common-sense policies that would reduce the number of
miscarriages, birth defects, and neurodevelopmental
disorders caused by mercury alone.

I don't have an answer regarding how to appeal to
voters who are against abortion but for the
environment. It's up to inidividuals to decide which
issues are deal-breakers for them. 

Some Catholics will be unable to vote for a pro-choice
Democrat. Other Catholics will be unable to vote for a
Republican who supports the war in Iraq and capital
punishment while opposing an increase in the minimum
wage (those are all issues on which the Catholic
Church's official position contradicts the GOP's).

Yours,

Laura Belin

--- Cindy Hildebrand <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Perhaps another question that could be asked, if
> we're discussing this topic, 
> is why there are so few candidates (at least I've
> heard of few in this part 
> of the country) who say they are pro-life and who
> also consistently vote in 
> favor of protecting the environment.  Theoretically,
> one could have 
> pro-environment candidates who are on both sides of
> the abortion issue.  In practice, I 
> seldom see it, but maybe I'm not paying attention to
> enough political races 
> outside my immediate area.    
> 
> Cindy Hildebrand
> [log in to unmask]
> Ames, IA  50010
> 
> "Strawbury in the praries ripe and abundant." 
> (Meriwether Lewis)    
> 
> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
> - - - - - -
> To view the Sierra Club List Terms & Conditions,
> see:
>  http://www.sierraclub.org/lists/terms.asp
> 

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
To view the Sierra Club List Terms & Conditions, see:
 http://www.sierraclub.org/lists/terms.asp