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The US Supreme Court’s historic decision on Friday to end nationwide abortion rights drew unexpected criticism from some of America’s closest allies, bucking a global trend toward more liberal reproductive rights. The decision came just one day after the Supreme Court overturned some of the more modest gun restrictions – an issue that, along with the US embrace of the death penalty, has long astonished other Western countries. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, a Conservative who collaborated with former President Donald Trump on judicial nominations that paved the way for Friday’s decision, said the Supreme Court decision will have “huge ramifications” globally.
“I believe it is a significant step backward. I’ve always believed in a woman’s right to choose, and I still do, which is why the UK has the laws it does “Johnson stated this during a visit to Rwanda.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau described the decision as “horrific.”
Trudeau wrote on Twitter, “No government, legislator, or man should tell a woman what she’s doing and cannot do with her body.”
French President Emmanuel Macron expressed “solidarity with women whose freedoms are today questioned” by the United States Supreme Court, whilst also Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde stated that legal and safe abortion is a fundamental right.
“Depriving women of their individual rights is a retaliation for decades of hard work,” Linde said.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, an ally of Trump as well as his own country’s evangelical Christians, took to Twitter hours before the decision to condemn an 11-year-old girl’s abortion of a foetus that was the result of rape.
‘US outlier’
US President Joe Biden lamented that the Supreme Court had “made the United States an outlier among developed countries in the world,” vowing to continue efforts to secure legal abortion.
Biden made his remarks on the eve of a flight to Germany, which had just repealed a Nazi-era law that limited the amount of abortion information doctors and clinics could provide.
