News Release
Protection of Conscience Project
It is an unusual cover for a medical journal: a crouching, brawny Aryan hero, glowering murderously from under a horned helmet, a copper IUD clutched in his sword hand.
The Administrator of the Protection of Conscience Project wants to post the cover of the January/February edition of the BC Medical Journal on the Project website. In a letter to the editor of the Journal, he describes the cover as “a splendid illustration of the usual basis for conscientious objection to potentially abortifacient devices and drugs.”
Most physicians or others who object to the IUD (intrauterine device) and the ‘morning-after-pill’ do so because such things may act – not by preventing fertilization – but by destroying the developing human embryo by preventing its implantation in the uterine wall. This mechanism of action is explicitly acknowledged in the Journal’s article, written by Dr. Roey Malleson.
Rather than recognizing that the destruction of the developing embryo is a key moral issue – and a controversial one – Dr. Malleson defines the issue out of existence by adopting a coded vocabulary. Only readers familiar with authoritative embryological texts are likely to recognize the polemic behind Dr. Malleson’s use of words like ‘abortifacient’, ‘pregnancy’, and ‘contraception’.
The Project letter lauds the article as “an excellent example of moral obfuscation masquerading as science,” but challenges Dr. Malleson’s authority to tutor colleagues in faith and morals. It rejects the suggestion that civil suits might be used to suppress the freedom of conscience of those who do not share the BC Medical Journal’s enthusiasm for Aryan warriors.