General
The Project is a non-denominational, non-profit initiative supported by an
Advisory Board and
Project team.
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.
The Project does not take a position on the morality of contentious procedures.
Instead, it critiques policies of coercion and encourages accommodation of
objecting health care workers. It 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.
Freedom of conscience is a fundamental freedom that is important to both
religious and non-religious believers in many different contexts. Unfortunately,
people in all walks of life around the world suffer under the heel of repressive
and discriminatory laws and policies that attack their ability to live and work
according to their conscientious convictions.
Focus: health care
Nonetheless, it appears that, even in self-professed liberal democracies - if
not especially there - deliberate and continuing attempts to suppress freedom of
conscience are disproportionately directed at physicians, pharmacists, nurses,
other medical professionals and health care providers. Hence, the activities of
the Protection of Conscience Project are limited to the preservation and
protection of freedom of conscience in the delivery of health care. This does
not imply that preservation of freedom of conscience in other contexts is less
important.
Claims of conscience
Given this focus, a further question arises. Claims of conscience are often made
by people on both sides of controversial issues. For example: physicians may
assert that their desire to provide a procedure or service is motivated by their
conscientious convictions; others may explain their refusal to provide the same
service in exactly the same terms. The former hold that they are
conscience-driven to do a good that they believe ought to be done, the latter
that they are similarly driven to refuse to do an evil that ought to be avoided.
The key distinction
Here one encounters an important distinction that is often missed in discussions
about the limits of democratic freedoms. It is one thing to limit freedom of
conscience by enacting laws that prevent people from doing everything that they
want to do. But to force people to do things that offend their conscientious
convictions cannot be reconciled with the best traditions and aspirations of
liberal democracy. It is, in principle, inconsistent with the most rudimentary
principles of civic friendship, a serious assault on the essential foundation of
fundamental freedom, and offensive to human dignity. It is a fundamental
injustice that cannot be rectified or ameliorated by appeals to theories of
justice or notions of equality.
Securing the foundation
Thus, the Protection of Conscience Project, without denying the importance of
freedom of conscience in its widest sense, restricts the scope of its activity
to advocacy for freedom of conscience in its most essential and foundational
sense. Simply put, those providing health care must not be forced to do what
they believe to be wrong, or punished for refusing to do so.