Dr Leslie Cannold
Convention topic: Atheism or secularism? Picking our fights and watching our backs.
Dr Leslie Cannold is a bio-ethicist, researcher, writer, commentator and an Honorary Fellow at the School of Philosophy, Anthropology, & Social Inquiry (PASI) at the University of Melbourne, and Adjunct Senior Lecturer in the School of Public Health and Preventative Medicine at Monash University. Leslie is a member of the ethics panel of the Infertility Treatment Authority, the statutory authority responsible for administering Victoria's Infertility Treatment Act 1995, President of Reproductive Choice Australia, a national coalition of pro-choice individuals and organisations that in early 2006 played a key role in removing the effective ban on RU486 and Spokesperson for Pro Choice Vic, a coalition of organizations and individuals committed to achieving a change to Victoria's abortion laws that maximises the reproductive rights and freedoms, fosters the dignity and respects the moral agency of women and their partners. In 2008, Leslie was appointed to the Victorian Department of Human Services Human Research Ethics Committee and to the Physiotherapists Registration Board.
Leslie is the author of the award-winning The Abortion Myth: Feminism, morality and the hard choices women make and more recently What, No Baby: Why women are losing the freedom to mother, and how they can get it back (which made the Australian Financial Review's top 101 books list for 2005).
She has been a regular guest over the years on ABC local radio, Radio National and ABC TV. Since the late 1980's her views have appeared in The Age (Melbourne), the Sydney Morning Herald, the Herald Sun (Melbourne), the Courier Mail (Brisbane) and the national broadsheet The Australian. She currently writes a weekly column called Moral Maze, which appears on Sunday in the Extra section of the Sun-Herald (Sydney) and is the resident ethicist on Brisbane radio 4BC where she speaks to Greg Cary every Thursday morning. She also speaks regularly to Deborah Cameron on ABC 702 Sydney about ethics and participates in Friday's "water-cooler" segment on 9am with David and Kim on Network Ten. In 2005, Leslie was selected as one of Australia's top 20 public intellectuals.
She is in high demand as a public speaker on issues to do with life, work, gender and ethics to community groups, professional organisations and secondary students. Leslie is also the vocalist of the Melbourne-based rock cover band Speedy Fish.
