The United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade just as President Joe Biden prepared to leave for Europe to meet with America’s closest allies, first at the Group of Seven and then at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit.
A presidential trip abroad is sometimes a respite from domestic turmoil, but the news followed Biden abroad. World leaders talked about it. They tweeted about it. The European press wrote about it. Some people protested in solidarity in places like Paris.
But the Supreme Court’s overturning of 50 years of precedent establishing a constitutional right to abortion would have been a global shocker, regardless of the era. It collided with a question that has permeated particularly fiercely since the Trump administration, which is something like: Who is America now?
“People are waking up to the realization that our democracy is nowhere near as expansive or as nimble as they may have thought to deal with the new challenges we face,” said Omar Guillermo. Encarnación, Professor of Political Studies at Bard University.
Not all allies and partners will likely interpret the Supreme Court decision in the same way; According to Politico’s Alex Ward, the news didn’t seem to resonate as strongly in South Korea, for example. But at least in much of Western Europe, where the majority favor abortion rights, leaders have largely seen it as a step backwards for women’s rights and human rights. This puts the US on a completely different course from many of its closest allies and could further weaken US leadership on human rights.
Beyond the substance of the opinion, the verdict is about what it means for America and its political divisions, and how it might mean how reliable and stable America and its institutions remain. Sarah Croco, a professor of government and politics at the University of Maryland, said Dobbs v. The decision by Jackson’s Women’s Health Organization to decide Roe opens another huge chasm in American political life. “I think this is another big signal: the country is no longer predictable,” Croco said.
Of course, a Supreme Court decision is a domestic matter and does not have the same impact as, say, withdrawing from a major multilateral treaty. Stephen Wertheim, Senior Fellow, American Statecraft Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. said it likely won’t have a big impact on allies and partners, but after other examples like President Donald Trump and Jan. 6, “it could help create a sense that the United States seems like a less familiar place, especially to Europeans. Less aspirational and so distant.”
Biden promised allies early in his presidency that “America is back.” On the global stage, he has tried, from rejoining global institutions to in-depth consultations with allies over the war in Ukraine. But especially in Europe, no one is quite sure how long it will last. The Supreme Court did not raise this doubt. It’s another reminder that doubts like this don’t go away.
“Is that something that in itself makes people question their relationship with the United States?” said David O’Sullivan, who served as EU ambassador to the US from 2014 to 2019. “No, but as far as the direction of travel goes, I think it’s another troubling sign of the deep divisions in American society.”
Roe may damage America’s soft power
On the same day, the Supreme Court overturned Roe, striking down a Nazi-era German law that prohibited abortion providers from advertising their services or providing information. It’s part of a larger pattern: Over the past 25 years, nearly 60 countries have expanded access to reproductive rights, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights. Read also : Political Lessons for Democrats in Post-Roe America. The United States is only one of four countries – Poland, Nicaragua and El Salvador are the others – that have withdrawn rights since 1994. This group is not exactly among the democracies that the US often sees itself as a leader.
Good thing #219a will soon be history. But yesterday also reminds us that gender justice still has a long way to go. In Germany – and in many other parts of the world. Women’s rights are at risk. We must defend them resolutely. #RoeVsWade
Although, to be clear, the US has always vacillated on promoting reproductive rights as part of its foreign policy; Republicans back off and Democrats restore funding for certain programs.
The Roe decision is in some ways more visible than, say, the funding of a UN agency. Gender and women’s rights have long been a focal point of US foreign policy, experts said. The Dobbs decision is not the first to expose the gap between America’s ideals and its reality, but it may make it harder for the US to take that stand. “It takes this huge step back, and so US soft power is damaged in many ways,” said Michaela Mattes, associate professor of international affairs at the University of California, Berkeley.
And Supreme Court rulings can be internationally significant. Brown v. Board of Education, a landmark anti-segregation case, also helped show the United States to the world that it was trying to live up to post-World War II human rights ideals, and it contributed to larger ideological struggles during the Cold War. The war between democracy and communism. As former Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said in 2004, “In sum, Brown reflected and drove the development of human rights protections at the international level. It was decided in full view of the horrors of the Holocaust and the repression of communist regimes in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, which is the current reality.
Encarnación pointed out that when it comes to civil liberties, whether in politics or law, “it’s been a long, long, long, long, long, long, long time since the Supreme Court ruled the world.” (Same-sex marriage, perhaps the last major progressive ruling, was already legal in about 20 states when the ruling took effect in 2015.) The question is whether Dobbs has leverage, but in a different direction — whether it further undermines the U.S.’s ability to promote human rights. or used to justify rolling back women and human rights elsewhere.
“That’s something we saw in Brown v. [Board of Education] — how a domestic federal decision had global dimensions,” said Joyce Mao, associate professor of history at Middlebury University. “The overturning of Roe could have similar cultural, political and diplomatic significance, absolutely affecting how potential allies and existing allies view American democracy.”
America, the unpredictable
Allies and others have been quite worried and disillusioned with the US before, as during the Iraq war. But then came Donald Trump, who threatened to withdraw from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, actually withdrew from the Iran deal negotiated with European partners and started trade wars with allies. Read also : The Supreme Court, which is not historically known, made a decision that is not historically known. Also, Twitter wars. Things that seemed like bipartisan constants in American foreign policy no longer were.
But the Trump era also revealed how deeply divided and polarized America was, culminating on January 6, 2021, and the electoral fraud that has only deepened its grip on American political life. Biden is president, and now relations with allies and partners are peaceful, even revived. But it no longer seems permanent.
The Supreme Court decision fits into this larger pattern of unpredictability, making it difficult to know where America will be in the next few months, years, or decades. As experts said, US institutions, including internationally, were often seen as creating this framework for stability — yes, different parties won, there were tensions between the branches, but pragmatism tended to prevail. “That pragmatism about execution is gone — and Roe and Dobbs illustrated it to the nth degree,” Mao said.
As Mattes said, the Supreme Court decision has now confirmed that the once stabilizing factors may not be. Instead, it is who has control over the institutions that counts; and may no longer have the same limitations.
Abortion is a basic right for all women. It must be protected. I want to express my solidarity with the women whose liberties are being eroded by the United States Supreme Court.
And predictability is what you want when dealing with other countries, and it’s what you need with allies and close partners. Dobbs is unlikely to directly change US relations with its allies in the near future, and it will land differently in different parts of the world. But especially among European partners, it is likely to raise persistent concerns that the Biden administration is less a recovery than a respite.
