Organization
The Project is a non-denominational, non-profit initiative supported by a project team and advisory board.
Purpose
The Project operates a website in order to
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advocate for protection of conscience legislation;
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facilitate communication and co-operation among protection of conscience advocates;
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provide legislative draftsmen with useful information;
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promote clarification and understanding of the issues involved to assist in reasoned public discussion;
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act as a clearing house for reports from people who have been discriminated against for reasons of conscience, directing them to legal assistance and other support when possible.
General Policy
The Project does not direct or manage protection of conscience initiatives. The people best placed to deal with a problem are those directly involved. For the benefit of those working for protection of conscience, the Project
- provides information
- offers suggestions
- encourages co-operation
- facilitates communication
As the opportunity arises, the Project responds to critics and draws attention to attitudes, policies and laws that fail to make sufficient allowance for legitimate freedom of conscience.
Project Team
Administrator
Sean Murphy,
Powell River, British Columbia, Canada
Sean Murphy has been convinced of the need
for protection of conscience legislation since 1988. He has raised the issue with
the Canadian federal government, as well as political parties and the provincial
government in British Columbia.
Human Rights Specialist
Michael Markwick,
Instructor in Communications, Simon Fraser University,
Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada
Formerly executive assistant to the Chief Commissioner of the
Ontario Human Rights Commission, and past President of the British Columbia Chapter of the
Catholic Civil Rights League (Canada).
Advisory Board
Janet Ajzenstat,
B.A., M.A., Ph.d Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Professor Ajzenstat teaches public law and political philosophy. Her most recent books are "Canada's Founding Debates" (edited with Paul Romney, Ian Gentles, and William D. Gairdner [Stoddart 1999]), and "Canada's Origins" (edited with Peter J. Smith [Carleton University Press, 1995]). She is associated with the Centre for Renewal in Public Policy and the Dominion Institute. In 1988-89 she was Executive Director of the Human Life Research Institute (now the Barrie de Weber Institute). Her most recent contribution to reports for the Institute is "Going It Alone", (co-authored with Elizabeth Cassidy, Elise Carter, and Gerald Bierling) a study of pregnant, unmarried women who have chosen to continue their pregnancies.
Dr. Shahid Athar, M.D., F.A.C.E.
Clinical Associate Professor of Internal Medicine and Endocrinology,
Indiana School of Medicine, Indianapolis, Indiana, U.S.A.
Dr. Athar was born at Patna, India. He
did his medical training in Karachi, (Pakistan), Chicago, (Illinois), and at Indiana
University. He is a U.S. Citizen and lives in Indianapolis with his wife and four
children. Dr. Athar edited "Islamic Perspectives in Medicine", and has
written and published over 110 articles on Islam. His numerous books include
"Health Concerns for Believers", "Reflections of an American Muslim",
and "Sex Education- An Islamic Perspective". His collection of English
poems, "Reflections in Love", was released in 1999 by Watermark Press.
Dr. Athar is an alternate delegate to UN
(NGO) for World Muslim Congress, past chair of the Interfaith Alliance, an active member
of Council For National Interest, Christian & Muslims For Peace, Amnesty
International, Physicians For Human Rights, lslamic Medical Association, Solidarity
International For Human Rights. He was nominated for 1992 Jefferson Award and
received Diamond Award for outstanding volunteerism from the "United To Serve
America". He is listed in the International Directory of Specialists in Islamic
Studies published from Rabbat, Morocco, 1991, and North American Muslim Resource
Directory, 1994. Dr. Athar is a former a regent and elected vice-president of the Islamic
Medical Association of North America, and was Chair of its Medical Ethics Committee.
J. Budziszewski, Ph.D
Professor, Departments of Government and Philosophy, University of Texas
(Austin), U.S.A.
Dr. Budziszewski, an ethical and political theorist with special
interest in the natural law tradition. He is the
author of nine academic books, most recently The LIne Through the Heart:
Natural Law as Fact, Theory and Sign of Contradiction (2009). He has contributed numerous articles and reviews to both scholarly
and popular periodicals.
Dr. Budziszewski is particularly interested in problems that arise at
the intersection of philosophy and theology, for example the problem of
toleration, the nature of human personhood, and the pathologies which
flow from moral self-deception -- from trying to convince ourselves that
we do not know what we really do.
Dr.
John Fleming, B.A., Th.L. (Hons), Ph.D.
Former Director, now Adjunct Professor,
Southern Cross Bioethics Institute, Adelaide, Australia
Dr. John Irving Fleming, a bioethicist, was from 1987 to 2004 the
director of the Southern Cross Bioethics Institute in Adelaide, South
Australia. From 2004 until September, 2009, he was President of Campion College
Australia, a Catholic liberal arts college that opened in Sydney,
Australia, in 2006.
Dr. Fleming was a member of the Advisory Board for the Centre
for International and Cross-Cultural Studies, University of South
Australia. He was an elected delegate to the Australian Constitutional
Convention in February, 1998.He
was also a member of the Aged Care Compliance and Accreditation Forum
(Federal Government) from 2000-2002 and Chair of the Working Group to
develop a Code of Ethics and Guide to Ethical Conduct for the Aged Care
Sector from 2000-2003.
From 1993-1996,
Dr. Fleming was a member of UNESCO's International Bioethics Committee. He was also a member of the South Australian Council on
Reproductive Technology from 1998 – 2004, and a deputy member of the
Medical Practitioners Professional Conduct Tribunal under Section 24 of
the Medical Practitioners Act 1983. (SA) from 2000-2004.
He is also a member of several organizations in the field of bioethics, including the International Bioethics Association, the Australian Bioethics Association, and an associate member of the European Association of Centres of Medical Ethics. In 1999 he joined the Biotechnology Consultative Group (BIOCOG), which provides advice to the Australian Federal Government.
Henk
Jochemsen, PhD
Former
Director, Prof.dr. G.A. Lindeboom Institute, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Professor Henk Jochemsen (1952) studied Molecular
Biology at the Agricultural University in Wageningen. The work for his PhD thesis
concerned a subject in pre-clinical cancer research at the State University in Leiden
(1979). From 1980-1986 he and his family pioneered in student work in Paraguay with the
International Fellowship of Evangelical Students. In addition to the student work,
Professor Jochemsen lectured in Molecular Biology at The National University in Asuncion
for five years, and Christian Ethics at a Bible College in Asuncion for two years.
After his return to the Netherlands (1986) he became involved in the Prof.dr. G.A. Lindeboom Institute, a private centre for medical ethics that was being founded at that time. From 1987 to January, 2009, he was the director of this Institute. In this capacity he wrote and (co)edited articles, reports and books, mainly in Dutch. He has been a guest teacher of medical ethics at a theological college for several years and has given lectures on various medical ethical themes both in the Netherlands and at international conferences and courses.
In January, 2009, Professor Jochemsen left the Lindeboom Institute to become director of PRISMA, an association of Christian organizations involved in humanitarian aid and development. He is a member of the ethics commission of the Federation of Associations of Patients with Congenital Diseases, and advisor of a few other organisations in health care in the Netherlands. From 1992-1996 he was a member of the Board of Administration of the European Association of Centres of Medical Ethics. Currently he is an Advisory Board member of the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity (Trinity International University, Bannockburn, IL) and a member of the European Editorial Board of `Ethics and Medicine'. He has held the Lindeboom chair for medical ethics at the Free University in Amsterdam since January 1, 1998.
Since the beginning of 1996, as a board member, Professor Jochemsen has coordinated the research at another private ethical institute, the Institute for Culture Ethics, at Amersfoort. He is a member of the Aid Commission of the Christian Reformed Churches in the Netherlands. He and his wife, Marieke Kok, have three children.
David Novak,
A.B., M.H.L., Ph.d.
J. Richard and Dorothy Shiff Chair of Jewish Studies, University of
Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
David Novak is Professor of the Study of Religion at the University
of Toronto, and also Professor of Philosophy, with appointments in University College, the
Faculty of Law, the Joint Centre for Bioethics, and the Institute of Medical Science.
He is also Director of the Jewish Studies Programme. From 1989 to 1997 he was
the Edgar M. Bronfman Professor of Modern Judaic Studies at the University of Virginia.
He had taught previously at Oklahoma city University, Old Dominion University, the
New School for Social Research, the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, and Baruch
College of the City University of New York. From 1966 to1969 he was Jewish Chaplain
to St. Elizabeth's Hospital, National Institute of Mental Health, in Washington, D.C.
After receiving a rabbinical diploma from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in 1966, he served as a pulpit rabbi in several American communities until1989. Professor Novak is a founder, vice-president and co-ordinator of the Panel of Inquiry on Jewish Law of the Union for Traditional Judaism. He is also a founder of the Institute for Traditional Judaism in Teaneck, New Jersey, where he lectures frequently. He serves as secretary-treasurer of the Institute of Religion and Public Life in New York, and is on the editorial board of its monthly journal, "First Things". He is a fellow of the American Academy for Jewish Research and the Academy for Jewish Philosophy.
During the academic year 1992-93 he was a Fellow of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. In the fall of 1995 he was Distinguished Visiting Professor of Religion and Business Ethics at Drew University. In February of the following year he delivered the Lancaster/Yarnton Lectures in Judaism and Other Religions at Oxford University and then at Lancaster University. He has lectured throughout North America as well as in Israel, Europe and South Africa.
The author of eleven books and the editor of three, David Novak's articles have appeared in numerous scholarly and intellectual journals. His latest book, "Covenantal Rights" (2000), is published by Princeton University Press. The Novaks have two grown children and two grandchildren. They live in Toronto.
Lynn D. Wardle,
J.D.
Professor of Law, J. Reuben Clark Law
School, Brigham Young University, Salt Lake City, Utah, U.S.A.
Professor Wardle joined the faculty
of the J. Reuben Clark Law School at Brigham Young University in 1978 and has taught
Biomedical Ethics & Law, Family Law, Conflict of Laws, Origins of the
Constitution, and other subjects full-time ever since. Most of Professor
Wardle's writing relates to biomedical law, family law, and international &
comparative law. He is the lead coauthor and editor of a four-volume treatise,
Contemporary Family Law (1988), the author or lead co-author of two other law books, and
more than sixty other law review articles, chapters in law books, and other scholarly and
professional publications. He has written extensively about biomedical ethical
issues, including abortion, euthanasia, and new reproductive technologies, family law,
comparative and international law, and conflict of laws. He has testified
before the Judiciary Committees or subcommittees of both the U.S. Senate and the House of
Representatives regarding various biomedical policy issues and family law issues, and also
before many state legislatures.