Justice ridicules foreign critics of abortion ruling

WASHINGTON — Justice Samuel Alito mocked foreign leaders’ criticism of the Supreme Court decision he authored overturning a constitutional right to abortion, in his first public comments since last month’s ruling. The justice’s remarks drew more criticism as well as some support.

Speaking in Rome at a religious liberty summit, Alito, 72, spent only a couple of minutes on the subject of abortion, and then only to discuss his foreign critics — an unusual step for a high court justice.

Dressed in a tuxedo and sporting a beard he sometimes grows when the court is out of session, Alito quipped that the ruling he authored had been “lambasted by a whole string of foreign leaders,” then joked that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson had “paid the price” for his comments. Johnson called the decision “a big step backwards” shortly before stepping down amid unrelated ethics investigations.

The decision by the court’s conservative majority led roughly a dozen states to shut down or severely restrict abortions within days. Eventually half of U.S. states are expected to ban or seriously restrict the procedure.

Alito also drew laughs from the audience at the conference, sponsored by the University of Notre Dame law school, when he said that “what really wounded me” were remarks made” by Britain’s Prince Harry. Speaking to the United Nations last week, Harry talked about the “rolling back of constitutional rights here in the United States” as one of a series of converging crises that also included the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

French President Emmanuel Macron and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also drew Alito’s attention in the talk he gave in Rome on July 21 at the invitation-only event. The law school posted the video this week. Alito was not identified in advance as a speaker at the conference.

Johnson’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Trudeau’s press secretary Cecely Roy said he would “always will stand up for women’s constitutional rights — including the right to choose and access to abortion.”

While justices routinely engage in pointed exchanges with their colleagues in dueling opinions, they rarely respond to outside critics. That’s especially true when talking about foreign leaders in an appearance outside the U.S., said Neil Siegel, professor of law and political science at Duke Law School.

“His tone can be quite dismissive and scathing. It’s as if he simply doesn’t care that there are tens of millions of people in this country and abroad who disagree with him profoundly,” he said. “I think the most important thing is that this is not how our justices are supposed to behave.”

Yet there is no prohibition on justices discussing cases publicly once they are decided, said Akhil Reed Amar, professor of constitutional law at Yale Law School.