Part I | Brief Summary

Category B | Principles

Topic 6 | Protecting conscience and conscientious objection

Conscience encompasses all deeply held convictions of an individual regarding what is right and wrong, including those based on religious belief. Conscientious objection, or “appeal to conscience,” is the refusal to follow a legal requirement based on conscience. Historically, state protection of conscience arose from the protection of religion-based conscientious objections to military service. If a state fails to protect religious conscience, the state will almost certainly fail to protect other conscience claims as well. Religion-based conscience claims have a heightened salience because of their appeal to an obligation higher than positive law. If duty to God is viewed as being insufficient to justify protecting conscience, then we should expect the state to view other grounds for protecting conscience, such as personal autonomy, to be insufficient as well.