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Sunday, February 13, 2011

Sleeping Dragon: The Unfinished Business of Abortion Law Reform in Australia

For Your Diary

The 2011 Pamela Denoon Lecture will be given by Dr Leslie Cannold, Adjunct Fellow, School of Philosophy, Anthropology and Social Inquiry, University of Melbourne

When: Monday 7 March 2011 8pm – 9pm, followed by light refreshments
Where: Manning Clark Lecture Theatre 3 Union Court Australian National University (ANU)

For those not in Canberra, ABC Radio National "Big Ideas" will be recording the lecture.

A 19 year-old Cairns woman and her 20 year–old partner are charged with procuring an abortion and hauled into court. This did not take place in the 19th century when the laws were framed. The couple were tried in late 2010. In this lecture, Dr Leslie Cannold will argue that abortion law reform in Australia is unfinished business. Only in the ACT and Victoria is abortion not a crime. She will discuss why abortion is still a fundamental issue for women and how we can - and must – campaign for change.

Dr Cannold is an author, commentator, ethicist and activist. She is an adjunct Fellow at the School of Philosophy, Anthropology and Social Inquiry at the University of Melbourne and senior lecturer at the Monash Institute of Health Services Research. She is President of Reproductive Choice Australia, a national coalition of pro-choice organisations that played a key role in removing the effective ban on the abortion drug RU486. Dr Cannold is also President of Pro Choice Victoria which was instrumental in the decriminalisation of abortion in Victoria in 2008. Her books include The Abortion Myth and What, No Baby? She has a chapter on abortion in The Australian Book of Atheism (Scribe 2010) and her first novel, The Book of Rachael, will be published by Text in April 2011.

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