It's not a small number of people though. Surely if anyone is going to refuse, it should be the manager ordering the change refusing to give the order. Why should the little guy at the bottom have to carry the can? So logically, that applies from Apple's legal counsel and management all the way down the chain. That makes up a large pyramid shaped chunk of the Apple reporting hierarchy.

Now in no way am I saying that a manager's career is worth more than that of a low level engineer. That because ethically speaking any dissent should begin with a manager and just because of that it's a non starter. My point is that the potential damage such individual action could do to Apple as an organization, taken to it's logical conclusion, could be catastrophic. So we're not just talking about a small handful of people taking a personal stand that just affects them. The people the buck stops with are Tim Cooke and Apple's legal and leadership teams, and they have responsibilities to Apple and their employees. It's nowhere near as simple as you're making out.