Protection of Conscience Project
 

Organization
 

Purpose

General Policy

Advisory Board
 

Project Team

The Project operates a website in order to

• advocate for protection of conscience legislation;

• facilitate communication and co-operation among protection of conscience advocates;

• provide legislative draftsmen with useful information;

• promote clarification and understanding of the issues involved to assist in reasoned public discussion;

• 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.

• 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.

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 regent and former elected vice-president of the Islamic Medical Association of North America and the 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, a specialist in ethical and political philosophy, is the author of six academic books, most recently "What We Can't Not Know: A Guide" (2003), "The Revenge of Conscience: Politics and the Fall of Man" (1999) and "Written on the Heart: The Case for Natural Law"(1997).  He has contributed numerous articles and reviews to both scholarly and popular periodicals, including "First Things", the "American Journal of Jurisprudence", the "Journal of Politics", the "American Political Science Review", the "Weekly Standard", the "National Review", and Public Choice".  

Among his topics are natural law, virtue ethics, Christian faith, and the problem of tolerance.  In his latest book, "The Revenge of Conscience: Politics and the Fall of Man", Dr. Budziszewski inquires into the cultural pathologies which flow from the repression of moral knowledge -- from trying to convince ourselves that we do not know what we really do.

Dr. John Fleming, B.A., Th.L. (Hons), Ph.D.; President, Campion College, Sydney, Australia
Dr. John Irving Fleming, a bioethicist, was from 1987 to 2004 the director of the Southern Cross Bioethics Institute in Adelaide, South Australia. In 2004 he was appointed President of Campion College Australia, a new Catholic liberal arts college that will open in Sydney in 2006.  He continues a contractual relationship with the Southern Cross Bioethics Institute, and will continue his academic bioethics work in Campion.

Dr. Fleming is former Dean and Vice-Master of St. Mark's College in the University of Adelaide.  His PhD thesis was titled Human Rights and Natural Law: An Analysis of the consensus gentium and its Implications for Bioethics.  Dr. Fleming is a former Anglican priest.  Married, with three children, a papal dispensation permitted his ordination in the Catholic Church (Diocese of Adelaide) in 1995.  He became a Corresponding Member of the Pontifical Academy for Life (Vatican) the following year. 

From 1995-2004 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.

Dr. Fleming was a member of UNESCO's International Bioethics Committee from 1993-1996.  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 currently a member of the Council of the National Museum of Australia, an Expert Member of the Gene Technology Ethics Committee (GTEC) set up under the Gene Technology Act 2000, (Commonwealth of Australia), a Faculty Member of the John Paul 2 Institute for Marriage and Family (Melbourne, Australia).

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; 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. Since 1987 he has been the director of this Institute. In this capacity he has written 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.

Professor Jochemsen 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.