Contact: Mark Bradford, National Catholic Bioethics Center, 215-877-2660

PHILADELPHIA, April 18, /Christian Newswire/ -- The National Catholic Bioethics Center is gratified that the Supreme Court has voted to retain some safeguards for the unborn in their April 18th decision to uphold the federal ban on partial-birth abortion signed by President Bush in 2003. The National Catholic Bioethics Center especially applauds the separate opinion expressed by Justices Thomas and Scalia that there is no justification in the U.S. Constitution for "the courts abortion jurisprudence, including Casey and Roe v. Wade." The Court's ruling on Roe v. Wade in 1973 virtually removed all restrictions against protecting unborn life from abortion in this country.

This decision by the Supreme Court holds out hope that in the future additional progress might be made to ensure the protection of fetal life by overturning the 1973 decision and halting a gruesome practice that ends over 1 million lives in the U.S. each year.