Yesterday the Daily Blog noted the discouraging reality that 16 Catholic U.S. senators last week voted against legislation to enhance conscience protections for pro-life medical personnel.

But here’s some good news: Nine Catholic senators voted in favor of protecting conscience rights, including one Democrat: Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey.

Sen. Casey deserves special recognition, we think. That’s because unlike the eight Catholic Republicans who voted for the bill — Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas, Sen. Jim Bunning of Kentucky, Sen. Mike Johanns of Nebraska, Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida, Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Sen. Jim Risch of Idaho, Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana, and Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio — Casey had to buck his party’s extreme pro-abortion Congressional leadership to do so.

The Senate amendment was introduced by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., in the context of President Barack Obama’s decision to rescind new conscience regulations instituted by the Department of Health and Human Services in the final days of George W. Bush’s presidency.

A 30-day period for public comment about Obama’s move to rescind the HHS regulations, which give added force to existing legal protections for pro-life medical personnel against being forced to participate in abortion and other life-destroying procedures, ends tomorrow.

The U.S. bishops have called on Obama to leave the new HHS regulations in place in order to protect the rights of conscience and religious freedom of medical personnel who are pressured to participate in anti-life procedures.

Go here to view a video of Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic bishops, explaining why these regulations must be retained.

Go here to express your support today for retention of these regulations to the Department of Health and Human Services by email.

But let’s get back to Sen. Casey. While he’s the son of a legendary pro-life Catholic Democrat, the late Gov. Robert Casey of Pennsylvania, Casey has had a decidedly mixed Senate voting record on the life issues since defeating incumbent pro-life Senate stalwart Rick Santorum in 2006.

For example, earlier this year he was publicly admonished by his own local bishop, Bishop Joseph Martino of Scranton, Pa., for voting against a provision to deny U.S. taxpayer funding to groups that promote abortion overseas.

On the other hand, Casey doesn’t have a solidly pro-abortion voting record, unlike most of his Democratic colleagues in the Senate. This indicates that his professed commitment to being pro-life is not merely a fiction, even if his anti-life votes indicate his commitment as a Catholic politician to defend the sanctity of human life needs strengthening.

Casey’s vote on the conscience amendment is an encouraging sign that he’s doing that.

The Register applauds his action. And we hope sincerely that the Pennsylvania Democrat will give us many more opportunities to applaud his Catholic witness for human life.