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Since taking office, the message undergirding nearly all of President Biden’s foreign trips has been that America is back. But as Biden began a five-day swing through Europe Sunday, he arrived in the Bavarian Alps bearing a less pleasant reality: America is backward, at least in the view of almost every foreign leader with whom he will meet this week, who responded to the news that the U.S. Supreme Court had overturned a woman’s right to abortion with abject dismay and alarm. (Parker and Viser, 6/26)

“Abortion is a fundamental right for all women,” tweeted French President Emnanuel Macron. “It must be protected. I wish to express my solidarity with the women whose liberties are being undermined by the Supreme Court of the United States.” Biden told reporters Sunday evening that the subject of the abortion decision had not come up in his chats with world leaders. “Not related to Ukraine or any of the issues discussed,” he said, replying flatly “no” when asked if the matter was broached to him by another summit attendee. Yet when the Supreme Court ruling came down Friday morning, Biden ended up being the third G-7 leader to offer reaction, with Canada’s Justin Trudeau and Britain’s Johnson quickly condemning the ruling even before Biden had delivered remarks at the White House. (Miller, 6/27)

World leaders and abortion rights advocates described the ruling as “horrific” and “appalling.” Crowds protested in cities including London, Paris and Ottawa. “One of the darkest days for women’s rights in my lifetime,” Scottish leader Nicola Sturgeon tweeted. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the decision “clearly has massive impacts on people’s thinking around the world.” He called it “big step backwards.” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau described it as “horrific.” “No government, politician, or man should tell a woman what she can and cannot do with her body,” he tweeted. (Taylor, Cunningham, Tsui and Parker, 6/25)

Doctors and pro-choice activists have condemned the overturning of Roe v Wade, describing it as an “unconscionable attack” that will leave the supreme court justices with “blood on their hands” and cause a global chilling effect on women’s rights. In a statement signed by more than 100 global healthcare organizations, including the UK’s Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (RCOG), medics said the US supreme court’s move was “a catastrophic blow” to millions. The statement, also signed by the RCOG’s faculty of sexual and reproductive healthcare, warned: “It is a decision that will cost lives for years to come.” (Davies, 6/24)

Criminalizing abortions would not prevent them, but make them more deadly, a spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Friday. “A staggering 45% of all abortions around the world are unsafe, making this a leading cause of maternal death,” a statement by the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency read. The World Health Organization also tweeted Friday that access to safe abortion care was “essential” and removing it would “put more women and girls at risk of illegal abortions and the consequent safety issues that would bring.” (Kwan, 6/25)

"With this decision, the conservative majority of the Supreme Court shows how extreme it is, how far removed they are from the majority of this country," Biden said a couple hours after the ruling was released on June 24. "They have made the United States an outlier among developed nations in the world." While the high court’s decision leaves in place state laws that permit abortion, it removes the national right to an abortion — something that is widely guaranteed by laws or court rulings in other developed nations. With few exceptions, legal abortion is available in "peer nations," including in countries comparable to the U.S. in terms of development or in their use of a common law system, said Martha Davis, a law professor at Northeastern University who filed an amicus brief in 2021 with the court arguing that Roe should not be overturned. (Czopek and Kertscher, 6/26)

An abortion summit on Monday will be an important opportunity to "reaffirm women's autonomy and right to choose", First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has said. The summit, in Edinburgh, aims to ensure that women in Scotland can access services without fear, harassment or intimidation and will look at legislative mechanisms to establish buffer zones around clinics. It will also seek to identify immediate, short term actions to protect women from harassment or intimidation outside hospitals and sexual health clinics, following protests by anti-abortion campaigners outside such facilities in recent weeks. (Cameron, 6/27)