Carter Snead, director of the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture and professor in the Notre Dame Law School, issued the following response to Thursday's decision by U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Walton Pratt to issue a preliminary injunction against Indiana House Bill 1337, which prohibits abortion based on a diagnosis of disability, sex, race, or national origin. Professor Snead's statement follows:

It is an ironic tragedy that a federal judge has declared that the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution (adopted in the wake of the Civil War) forbids extending the equal protection of the law to disabled unborn children facing the most lethal form of discrimination.  Given its current composition, this error may well be confirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court, but that does not make it right as a matter of law or basic justice.  Neither the text, history, nor tradition of the Constitution supports this result, which not only leaves the disabled unborn unprotected, but signals to those with disabilities everywhere that their lives are less worth protecting.  History will not look favorably on this chapter in our nation's shared life.