Johnson, Trudeau and Macron express dismay, criticism

LONDON • British Prime Minister Boris Johnson did not wait for President Joe Biden to react after the United States Supreme Court overturned the 1973 Roe v Wade decision and erased the constitutional right of women in America to have an abortion.

Neither did Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Both abandoned diplomatic niceties to express their dismay.

French President Emmanuel Macron was not far behind.

All four are due in the Bavarian Alps this weekend for a Group of Seven (G-7) summit, where the key focus is what to do about Russia four months after its invasion of Ukraine. But the political bombshell that just dropped in the US immediately struck a chord beyond American borders.

Mr Johnson, shackled with his own problems back home, was quick to comment. "I've got to tell you, I think it's a big step backwards," he said at a news conference during a visit to Rwanda.

It is unusual for any British leader to speak critically of the US, given how highly the United Kingdom prizes its "special relationship"; in particular, to wade into domestic matters.

Mr Johnson is the first Catholic leader of the UK following his conversion last year. He said the US ruling "has massive impacts on people's thinking around the world".

Mr Trudeau, who was also in Kigali with Mr Johnson for a summit, defined it as a "devastating setback". Mr Biden, a church-going Catholic, agreed a few hours later by saying the US now finds itself "an outlier".

The US essentially would now stand among its G-7 cohorts as a nation with some of the most stringent restrictions on the reproductive rights of women.

The next to comment was the recently re-elected Mr Macron, representing a nation where the separation of Church and state has been sacrosanct since the French Revolution. His tweet, translated into English, was unequivocal: "Abortion is a fundamental right for all women. We must protect it."

The ruling came on the same day the lower house of Germany's Parliament moved to abolish a law that banned doctors from providing information about abortions.

Abortion was legalised in mostly Catholic Italy in 1978. Traditionally Catholic Ireland overturned an abortion ban in a 2018 referendum.

Latin America, long a stronghold against abortion, has also been moving to liberalise its laws. Colombia in February legalised abortion up to 24 weeks into pregnancy, and Chile shortly afterwards said it would enshrine the decriminalisation of abortion in its Constitution. Mexico last year had its own historic Supreme Court decision, declaring the prohibition of abortion unconstitutional.

BLOOMBERG, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE