Supreme Court JusticeSamuel Alitomocked world leaders, includingPrince Harryand outgoing British Prime MinisterBoris Johnson, for expressing their opinions on the recent Supreme Court ruling thatoverturnedRoe v. Wade, which guaranteed the right to abortion in the United States.
Video of his speech wasposted on YouTube Thursday.
“One of these was former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, but he paid the price,” Alito said, apparently making a joke about Johnson’sdecision to step down as prime ministeramid scandal and growing criticism of his leadership.
“But what really wounded me — what really wounded me — was when the Duke of Sussex addressed the United Nations and seemed to compare the decision, whose name may not be spoken, with the Russian attack on Ukraine,” Alito said, referring toPrince Harry.
The royal, who now resides in California, recently gave a special address in honor of Nelson Mandela Day at the United Nations.
Prince Harry speaks at the United Nations in New York.TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty
“This has been a painful year in a painful decade,” given the global COVID-19 pandemic, issues surrounding climate change, the war in Ukraine, the spread of disinformation and the “rolling back of constitutional rights here in the United States,“Prince Harry said, referring the Supreme Court decision.
Johnson, in June, called the ruling a regretful “step backward” but added that he was “speaking as someone looking in from the outside.”
In writing the majority opinion for the Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision that was announced in June, Alito declared: “It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”
Associate Justice Samuel Alito.Erin Schaff-Pool/Getty
The decision reversed nearly 50 years of precedent and instantlychanged the landscape of women’s reproductive rightsin the U.S., where abortion was quickly banned in multiple states and nearly half the country expected to enact near-total bans on the procedure in the months that followed.
Other world leaders who voiced their views on the decision also came up during Alito’s speech in Rome.
French PresidentEmmanuel Macroncalled abortion “a fundamental right for all women” that “must be protected” in apost on Twitter.
“The news coming out of the United States is horrific,” Canadian Prime MinisterJustin Trudeausaid in his own tweetfollowing the Supreme Court decision. “My heart goes out to the millions of American women who are now set to lose their legal right to an abortion. I can’t imagine the fear and anger you are feeling right now.”
After his joke about Johnson prompted laughter from the audience, Alito said, “Others are still in office, President Macron and Prime Minister Trudeau, I believe, are two.”
“Despite this temptation I am not going to talk about cases from other countries,” Alito continued. “All I’m going to say is that if we are going to win the battle to protect religious freedom in an increasingly secular society, we will need more than positive law.”
source: people.com
