Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito mocked Prince Harry to torrents of laughter during his first public remarks since the decision to overturn Roe v Wade.
‘What really wounded me, what really wounded me,’ the justice said, ‘Was when the Duke of Sussex addressed the United Nations and seemed to compare the decision, whose name may not be spoken, with the Russian attack on Ukraine.’
Alito, who authored last month’s ruling, also mocked foreign world leaders who have decried the Supreme Court decision and implied they should keep their noses out of America’s law books.
‘I had the honor this term of writing I think the only Supreme Court decision in the history of that institution that has been lambasted by a whole string of foreign leaders who felt perfectly fine commenting on American law,’ Alito said.
Alito made his comments at a July 21 conference on religious liberty in Rome hosted by the University of Notre Dame Law School. Notre Dame posted a video of the online on Thursday.
His shot at Prince Harry came after the former Duke of Sussex rebuked the Supreme Court decision as well as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine during a speech at the UN in New York City on July 18.
The Duke of Sussex’s spoke to the general assembly of the UN on July 18 for Nelson Mandela Day, where Harry waded into US politics while describing a ‘global assault on democracy and freedom.’
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito mocked Prince Harry to torrents of laughter during his first public remarks since the decision to overturn Roe v Wade
Alito also joked that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, pictured on July 28, torpedoed his political career by speaking out against the end of Roe. Johnson will step down later this year after being sunk by a series of scandals
He added: ‘And from the horrific war in Ukraine to the rolling back of constitutional right in the US we are witnessing a global assault on democracy and freedom, the cores of Mandela’s life.’
The comment was a clear dig at the decision to overturn Roe, which guaranteed women across the US the right to abortion.
‘This has been a painful year in a painful decade. We are living through a pandemic that continues to ravage communities in every corner of the globe,’ Harry said.
‘Climate change wreaking havoc on our planet with most vulnerable suffering most of all. The few weaponizing lies and disinformation at the expense of the many.’
Numerous prominent world leaders have also expressed dismay at the overturning of Roe v Wade, including British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, French President Emmanuel Macron and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Alito called out President Macron by name in his speech, but he reserved an extra quip for Prime Minister Johnson.
‘One of these was former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, but he paid the price,’ Alito joked, referring to Johnson’s plans to step down following criticism of his leadership from within Britain’s ruling Conservative Party.
Aside from those references to Roe’s foreign critics, Alito skirted the topic and focused instead on the conference’s theme of religious liberty.
‘Religious liberty is under attack in many places because it is dangerous to those who want to hold complete power,’ he said. ‘It also probably grows out of something dark and deep in the human DNA – a tendency to distrust and dislike people who are not like ourselves.’
Alito was speaking in Rome, close to the colosseum where he recalled the history of of Christians being ‘torn apart by wild beasts’ and the palace where Roman Emperor Nero ‘used torches to light up Christians at his garden parties.’
In the West, religious liberty is ‘facing a different challenge’ than countries in the rest of the world as more people in the US and Europe ‘turn away from religion’, he said.
Alito quoted polls where more people answered they identify as atheist or agnostic than ever before.
He said it is ‘hard to convince people of religious liberty if they don’t think religion is a good thing that deserves protection’.
The challenge, Alito added, is to convince others that ‘religious liberty is worth special protection’ which he said ‘will not be easy to’ achieve.
Alito said America should take pride in encouraging the UN to establish the universal declaration of human rights, emphasizing that the US should serve as an example to the rest of the world.
‘Religious liberty has often fueled social reform’ he said, adding: ‘It is not an accident’ that the leaders who moved to abolish slavery were ‘very often men and women of faith.’
Alito has been characterized as one of the Supreme Court’s most conservative judges
Alito spoke of Martin Luther King Jr.’s role as a ‘reverend’ who ‘was able to speak to all American regardless of race’.
He also talked about the relationship between freedom of religion and freedom of speech, asking: If this can be suppressed then ‘what is to stop the state from crushing other forms of expression?’
Religious liberty is ‘so powerful’ it once helped bring down a powerful totalitarian state, he said, going on to speak about the fall of the Soviet Union.
‘During my lifetime the People’s Republic of China did its best to eradicate religion completely, and yet it failed, just like the Roman emperors who tried to outlaw Christianity failed,’ he concluded.
‘In China, there are now more Christians than there are in France or Germany. And if trends continue, the number of Christians in China may surpass those in the US.’
Alito, a Roman Catholic, has been characterized as one of the Supreme Court’s most conservative justices.
The conservative justice was nominated to the court by President George W. Bush in 2005. He began his service in 2006.
In the July 18 UN address that prompted Alito’s response, Harry quoted statistics from freedom house showing the world had grown less free for more than a decade and a half.
It is not the first time the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have waded into American politics, finding themselves in hot water after commenting on the US election.
During a Time 100 video in September 2020 they called on American voters to ‘reject hate speech, misinformation and online negativity’ in ‘the most important election of our life.’
Markle told activist Gloria Steinem in June she is willing to go to Washington DC to join protests against the abortion ruling and urged people to vote in the November midterms.
In an interview with Vogue, Meghan also urged men to be ‘more vocal’ with their anger at the repealing of Roe v Wade.
Members of the royal family are supposed to be politically neutral, when they stepped back from their roles the Sussex’s vowed that ‘everything they do will uphold the values of Her Majesty’.
But Meghan and Harry recently hired Miranda Barbot, a former aide to former president Barack Obama who was central to his successful reelection campaign in 2012.
Meghan’s political ambitions have long been talked about since she and Harry emigrated from Britain including claims that she would ‘seriously consider’ running for president if her husband dropped his royal title.
Two years ago, a friend of the Duchess told Vanity Fair magazine that one of the reasons she did not give up her American citizenship when she married into the Royal Family was to allow her to keep open the option of entering politics.
President Biden’s sister, Valerie, 76, recently invited the duchess to join the Democratic Party and said she would ‘of course’ make a good presidential candidate.
Britain’s Prince Harry and his wife Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, arrive to celebrate Nelson Mandela International Day at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, July 18
‘I think that she does see her future as possibly a congresswoman for California,’ said Tom Bower, the author of a new book on Meghan and Harry, in an interview with Daily Mail Royals.
He added: ‘Her problem is twofold. One is that it is very badly paid, and Meghan needs a lot of money to live, the second is that you’ve got to be pretty tough in a political fight. You are up against a lot of competitors.’
He also revealed Meghan had become a close mentor to former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who allegedly arranged philanthropic ventures for the couple.
The couple spectacularly quit the royal family in January 2020, a seismic event for the British monarchy that some comedians dubbed ‘Megxit’.
They now live in a $13million mansion in Montecito, California, after striking deals worth tens of millions to produce content for Netflix and Spotify.
A Netflix documentary about the Sussexes is set to be broadcast later this year, while a tell-all autobiography by Harry is due this fall.
The couple are parents to a three year-old son called Archie and an 13 month-old daughter called Lilibet.