JERUSALEM – In a series of highly unusual actions, the U.S. State Department and world leaders waded into the bitterly contentious domestic dispute over Friday’s Supreme Court’s ruling on abortion.
“As Secretary of State, I usually avoid commenting on Supreme Court rulings,” America’s top diplomat Antony Blinken announced in a statement.
“But today’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade has raised understandable questions and concerns across the world and within our [the Department of State’s] workforce.”
Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, also took the Supreme Court to task for its ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson’s Women’s Health Organization.
“The Supreme Court has taken away the established, fundamental, constitutional right to abortion from millions of Americans. This is a cruel, dark and dangerous decision,” Thomas-Greenfield said. “What makes this decision so heartbreaking is that Americans had a clear and unequivocal constitutional right stripped away.
“Roe v. Wade not only protected the right to privacy, it also reaffirmed basic principles of gender equality. … I have traveled the globe advocating for women’s rights. Now, this decision renders my own country an outlier among developed nations in the world.”
The rapid-fire moves by American diplomats to attack the nation’s top judicial body has raised alarm bells among commentators that this is a second act of President Barack Obama’s “apology tour” and an expression of homegrown anti-Americanism.
“It is an absolute disgrace for U.S. officials to be apologizing on the world stage for decisions taken by the U.S Supreme Court,” Nile Gardiner, director of the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, told Fox News Digital.
“[It’s] a demonstration of a complete lack of respect for the rule of law in America and a sneering disregard for democracy in America.”
The top U.S. officials trashing the Supreme Court’s ruling are “fundamentally anti-American,” he added.
“All of this condemnation of America, much of it coming from the Biden administration, actively helps America’s enemies across the world, including Russia and China,” Gardiner said. “It is out of order for foreign leaders to be lecturing the United States on a Supreme Court decision. It is a matter of U.S. national sovereignty.”
U.S. allies were quick to lash out at the court’s decision.
“The news coming out of the United States is horrific,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau declared. “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.
“No government, politician or man should tell a woman what she can and cannot do with her body. I want women in Canada to know that we will always stand up for your right to choose.”
Canada’s Supreme Court decriminalized abortion in 1988. Canadians, however, do not have a guaranteed right to abortion that is codified in law.
French President Emmanuel Macron tweeted on Friday: “Abortion is a fundamental right for all women. We must protect it. I would like to express my solidarity with all those women whose freedoms have today been compromised by the U.S. Supreme Court.”
In February, France extended the legal limit for terminating a pregnancy from 12 to 14 weeks.
