ADVISORY BOARD
Dr. Shahid Athar, M.D., F.A.C.E.
Staff physician (active) Department of Medicine, St. Vincent Hospital, Indianapolis, Indiana; consultant in Endocrinology‑Internal Medicine.
Dr. Athar, a U.S. citizen, was born at Patna, India. He did his medical training in Karachi, (Pakistan), Chicago, (Illinois), and at Indiana University. From 1975 to 2006 he was he was Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine and then Clinical Associate Professor of Internal Medicine and Endocrinology, Indiana University School of Medicine.
He is a member and former a regent and former elected vice-president of the Islamic Medical Association of North America, and was Chair of its Medical Ethics Committee. Among other associations, he is a member of the Islamic Society of North America and Christians and Muslims for Peace (CAMP). He is on the Board of Advisors of the International Association for Sufism.
Dr. Athar's most recent awards include the Indianapolis Medical Society's Gov. Otis Bowen Community Service Award for Physicians (2002), the Laureate Award(2007), from the American College of Physicians, Indiana Chapter, and the St.Vincent Hospital Distinguished Services Award (2008) and Distinguished Physician Award (2009).
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. [Faculty Profile]
Abdulaziz Sachedina, Ph.D
Frances Myers Ball Professor of Religious Studies, University of Virginia, Charllottesville, Virginia, U.S.A.
Dr. Sachedina is an American/Canadian citizen born in Tanzania. He has studied in India, Iraq, Iran, and Canada, and obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto. He has been conducting research and writing in the field of Islamic Law, Ethics, and Theology (Sunni and Shiite) for more than two decades. In the last ten years he has concentrated on social and political ethics, including Interfaith and Intrafaith Relations, Islamic Biomedical Ethics and Islam and Human Rights. Dr. Sachedina’s publications include: Islamic Messianism (State University of New York, 1980); Human Rights and the Conflicts of Culture, co-authored (University of South Carolina, 1988); The Just Ruler in Shiite Islam (Oxford University Press, 1988); The Prolegomena to the Qur’an (Oxford University Press, 1998); The Islamic Roots of Democratic Pluralism (Oxford University Press, 2002); Islam and the Challenge of Human Rights (Oxford University Press, September 2009), in addition to numerous articles in academic journals.
The Ministry of Culture in Tehran named Dr. Sachedina's Islamic Biomedical Ethics: Theory and Application (Oxford University Press, February 2009) the best book of the year for 2010. Reviewing the book, David Novak (author of Jewish Social Ethics) described him as "the leading Islamic thinker writing in English today," and noted "his authentic religious commitment to the truth of Islam, and his willingness to engage perspectives from other traditions." [Faculty Profile]
Roger H. Trigg M.A., D.Phil.
Academic Director, Centre for the Study of Religion in Public Life, Kellogg College, Oxford, United Kingdom
Professor Roger Trigg did his undergraduate work and doctorate, both in philosophy, at New College, Oxford. He then taught philosophy at the University of Warwick for many years and is now Emeritus Professor of Philosophy there.
For the last three years, he has been directing an interdisciplinary research team in the cognitive science of religion in the University of Oxford. He is a member of the Princeton Center of Theological Inquiry, and is Senior Research Fellow in the Oxford Faculty of Theology. As Academic Director of the newly established Centre for the Study of Religion in Public Life at Kellogg College, Oxford, he is hoping, with the Centre, to initiate a major international research project on religious freedom.
Roger Trigg is the author of many books on Philosophy, particularly combating philosophical relativism in its various guises, and stressing the philosophical relevance of human nature. His two most recent books are 'Morality Matters' (Blackwell, Oxford, 2005), and 'Religion in Public Life' (Oxford University Press (2007) . He is presently completing a further book for Oxford University Press, on 'Equality, Freedom and Religion', and has in 2010 published a report for the Theos think tank in London on religious freedom called 'Free to Believe?' He has played a leading role in learned societies, and is the current (2008-10) President of the European Society for Philosophy of Religion. [Ian Ramsey Centre Faculty Profile]
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. [BYU
Faculty Profile]
PROJECT TEAM
Human Rights Specialist
Rocco Mimmo, LLB, LLM
Chairman, Ambrose Centre for Religious Liberty,
Sydney, Australia
Mr. Mimmo is a lawyer in private practice in Sydney, Australia. He established the Ambrose Centre for Religious Liberty in 2006 and publicly launched the Centre in 2009 in Sydney. He has been involved in social action throughout his adult life. In conjunction with others, he has attempted to influence the thrust of legislation adversely affecting the essential values associated around embryonic stem cell research, life, marriage and family. He has a Masters in International Law and has played a leading role in human rights debates. He is an Honorary Fellow of Campion College in Sydney which is the only Liberal Arts Tertiary Institution in Australia. [Ambrose Centre for Religious Liberty]
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.