Speakers and Biographies

Confirmed speakers include:

Marge Berer
Editor, Reproductive Health Matters
Marge Berer co-founded Reproductive Health Matters in 1992, which is now published in seven languages. She has been the Chair of the International Consortium for Medical Abortion since 2002, and the Chair of Voice for Choice, a coalition of pro-choice groups in the UK, since mid-2007. She was the first Chair of the Gender Advisory Panel, WHO Department of Reproductive Health and Research from 1996–2001, and served on the International Women’s Advisory Panel of the IPPF from 1993–1998. She is also a member of the Maternal Health Working Group, UK NGO Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights Network, the European Association of Science Editors, the IUSSP and the Association for Women’s Rights in Development. She has edited numerous publications in addition to the RHM journal, including several for the World Health Organization, and written many articles, particularly on abortion globally, maternal health issues, condoms and the intersection of sexual and reproductive health and HIV issues. She regularly gives lectures for post-graduate students and presentations at international conferences on these topics, and acts as a peer reviewer for major international health journals and the international AIDS conferences.

Mitchell Creinin, MD
Professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences, Director of Gynecologic Specialties, Director of Family Planning University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Professor of Epidemiology, University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health
Dr. Creinin also has an appointment as a Professor of Epidemiology in the Graduate School of Public Health at the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Creinin completed his residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Creinin completed two fellowships at the University of California, San Francisco: a Family Planning fellowship from the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences and a Clinical Research Fellowship from the Departments of Medicine and Epidemiology and Biostatistics. Dr. Creinin is a trained specialist in Family Planning and Contraception. Dr. Creinin receives research funding from the NIH, USAID, private foundations and industry. He is a well-respected author of more than 100 peer-review papers in addition to numerous review articles, book chapters and books related to Family Planning and Contraception. His current research interests include medical and surgical abortion techniques, abnormal early pregnancy, microbicides, and new contraceptive technologies including male and female barrier methods, hormonal contraceptive preparations, and intrauterine contraceptives.

Dr Stuart Derbyshire
Senior Lecturer in Psychology and Director of the Pain Research Laboratory

Eleanor Drey, MD, EdM
Associate Clinical Professor, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences, University of Californa, San Francisco
After her obstetrics and gynecology residency at UCSF, Eleanor Drey completed a Clinical and Research Fellowship in Family Planning there. As part of her advocacy for abortion rights, Eleanor testified for the City and County of San Francisco and for Planned Parenthood in the San Francisco Federal District court, one of the three courts where the federal abortion ban initially was overturned before the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the ban. Much of her research concerns second-trimester abortion and post-abortion contraception.

Christian Fiala, MD, PhD
Specialist in OB/Gyn, Medical Director Gynmed Clinic, Vienna
Being GP and specialist in Obstetrics and Gynaecology with an additional PhD on “Improving medical abortion”, Christian Fiala is highly engaged in reproductive health since more than 20 years. He combines clinical work and scientific research to further improve contraception and abortion. His focus on cultural and historical aspects of fertility control is based on extensive international working experience. He is author and co-author of numerous publications on contraception and abortion and has given more than 120 oral presentations since 1999 at national and international conferences on various aspects of contraception and abortion. Medical Director of Gynmed Clinic for Contraception and Abortion, Vienna, Austria www.gynmed.at. Member of the Research Group in Reproductive Health at the Karolinska University Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden, www.reproductivehealthresearch.org, President of the International Federation of Professional Abortion and Contraception Providers, FIAPAC www.fiapac.org, Founder and Director of the Museum of Contraception and Abortion, Vienna, www.muvs.org

Mary Fjerstad MP, MHS
Planned Parenthood Consortium of Abortion Providers, Director of Quality and Learning
Mary Fjerstad has worked in women’s health her entire adult life. For the past 18 years, she has worked in the field of abortion care. She tracked abortion complications for ten years, and for the past eight years has been instrumental in dissemination of mifepristone abortion at 289 Planned Parenthood health centers throughout the U.S.

Kathy French
Sexual Health Advisor
Kathy is part time sexual health adviser at the RCN and this posts covers the four countries on issues relating to nursing practice and professional issues. Her background is in contraception and abortion services in South East London. Her special interest is in issues of consent and confidentiality, especially around the mature minor and the vulnerable adult. She is currently completing a PhD looking at the invisibility of young men in discourses in sexual health. Kathy has recently written a book on the wider aspects of sexual health and this should be available later in the summer.

Ann Furedi
CEO, bpas
Ann Furedi is chief executive of bpas (formerly British Pregnancy Advisory Service). bpas is currently responsible for more than a quarter of all terminations in England and Wales. 85% of these are provided on behalf of the NHS. Ann re-joined bpas as chief executive in 2003 and has championed the development of bpas’ Early Medical Abortion service and bpas’ commitment to the provision of services to the legal time limit. Prior to 2003, Ann’s career focused on policy, communications and advocacy in reproductive and sexual health. She has served as director of policy and communications at the Human Fertilisation & Embryology Authority, and Director of Communications at bpas. Throughout the 90’s she ran the charity, Birth Control Trust and wrote extensively on issues relating to unplanned pregnancy.

Baroness Gould
Joyce Gould worked as a pharmaceutical dispenser and clerical worker before being employed by the Labour Party for over 20 years. She held the post of Assistant National Agent and Chief Women’s Officer within the Labour Party from 1975-85, during which time the Labour Party adopted a pro-choice policy position and helped fight off attacks on the 1967 Abortion Act. She was Director of Organisation within the Labour Party until 1993, when she was created a Life Peer. Baroness Gould has been President of fpa (Family Planning Association) since 1999, Chair of the Independent Advisory Group on Sexual Health and HIV since 2003, Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Pro-Choice and Sexual Health Group, and a patron of FORWARD, an organisation that campaigns against female genital mutilation. She is also currently Acting Chair of the Women’s National Commission. Baroness Gould is a member of the Fawcett Society, the Fabian Society, Epilepsy Action and the Electoral Reform Society, among others. She has written several pamphlets on feminism, socialism and society; women’s right to work; violence in society, and articles on women’s rights. She holds an honorary degree from Bradford University (1997) and is an honorary Fellow of the Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare (2006). Her interests include women’s equality, constitutional affairs, electoral reform, race relations, population and development, disability and sexual health. She also chairs the APPG on epilepsy and is an officer on other APPGs such as Population, Development and Reproductive Health; AIDS; and Children.

Daniel Grossman, M.D
Senior Associate, Ibis Reproductive Health
Dr. Grossman received his Bachelor’s of Science in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from Yale University and an M.D. from Stanford University. He completed his residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology at University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Prior to joining Ibis Reproductive Health in 2005, he held the position of Health Specialist at the Population Council in Mexico City. His current research with Ibis focuses on ways to improve access to contraception and safe abortion in the U.S., Latin America, and Sub-Saharan Africa, as well as on barrier methods for HIV prevention. Dr. Grossman also works as a clinician at St. Luke’s Women’s Center in San Francisco and is Assistant Clinical Professor at the Bixby Center for Reproductive Health Research and Policy and San Francisco General Hospital in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences at UCSF.

Lisa Hallgarten
Head of Policy and Communication, Education For Choice
Education For Choice is the only UK charity dedicated solely to enabling young people to make and act on informed choices about pregnancy and abortion.
Lisa has worked for Education For Choice since 2000, overseeing all programme areas: education work with young people; a national training programme for professionals in health, education, social care and youth work; research and consultancy; information and resources. She has developed the organisation’s advocacy role so that Education For Choice is now relied upon by statutory and voluntary sector organisations and media as a source of expertise on best practice in abortion education and pregnancy decision-making support.
Previously she worked as a journalist, adult education teacher and in educational publishing. She is a volunteer youth worker and trustee of a large progressive education charity.

Ian Hammond
bpas Chair
Ian Hammond has been a member of the Board of Trustees at bpas since March 2005, and its Chair since September 2006. He is currently runs his own management consultancy business and specialises in health related issues. Indeed he undertook consultancy for bpas in 2004/05 and was very impressed by the ethical approach of the staff.
Ian was previously an NHS manager, latterly a Trust Chief Executive, and before that a Department of Health civil servant. He has also been a University Governor and lay member of bodies responsible for postgraduate medical education. He has also worked as a regulator at the HFEA

Prof John Harris
Director, Institute of Science, Ethics and Innovation and Centre for Social Ethics and Policy
John Harris was educated at the University of Kent and at Balliol College, Oxford. On March 30th 2004 John Harris was appointed as the new joint Editor-in-Chief of The Journal of Medical Ethics the highest impact journal in medical and applied ethics. He was elected a Fellow of the United Kingdom Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci) in 2001, the first philosopher to have been elected to Fellowship of this new National Academy which was established to serve “the medical sciences in the same way as the Royal Society serves the natural sciences (and) the British Academy serves the humanities”. He has been a member of The United Kingdom Human Genetics Commission since its foundation in 1999 and formerly served on the United Kingdom Government Advisory Committee on Genetic Testing from its foundation in 1996 until its closure. He is also a member of the Ethics Committee of the British Medical Association. He was one of the Founder Directors of the International Association of Bioethics and is a founder member of the Board of the Journal Bioethics and Associate Editor (Genetics) of the Journal of Medical Ethics, and a member of the Editorial Board of the Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics and many other journals. John Harris is the author or editor of fifteen books and over two hundred papers. He has published in most of the leading philosophical journals in his field including, The Journal of Medical Ethics, Bioethics, The Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics, The Hastings Centre Report and Philosophy & Public Affairs. He has also published in many of the leading science journals including Nature, Nature Reviews Genetics, Science, Annals of the New York Academy of Science and The British Medical Journal. He currently holds research grants from the European Commission valued at around €1.5 million. John Harris is Research Director in a new research centre, the Institute of Science, Ethics and Innovation, which will be based in the School of Law. Sir John Solston will chair the Institute which will focus on the ethical questions raised by science and technology in the 21st century.

Lisa Harris
Assistant Professor, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Assistant Professor, Department of Women's Studies, Director for Fellowship in Family Planning
As an undergraduate English major at Harvard College Lisa Harris focused on the works of US southern women writers, largely because of their focus on the body and its traumas and meanings. From there she went on to Harvard Medical School, choosing to focus on the body in clinical medicine, rather than in texts. By the time she had finished residency in obstetrics and gynecology at University of California, San Francisco, it was apparent to her that illness and disability was often the result of social pressures – not strictly biomedical ones – and she knew her education was not complete. Therefore, during her Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars fellowship at University of Michigan, she launched a PhD in American Culture and a Graduate Certificate in Women’s Studies at University of Michigan, which she finished in 2006. Her dissertation, entitled “Challenging Conception: A Clinical and Cultural History of In Vitro Fertilization in the United States,” reconstructs the history of in vitro fertilization (IVF) in the US from its emergence in the 1970’s, through 2002. She focused in particular on three US cultural narratives that produced IVF as it is currently practiced – abortion politics, consumer culture, and the delayed childbearing of professional women. She also explicated the ways in which race and class and gender intersect in reproductive medicine. Currently she is an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Women’s Studies at the University of Michigan. She is also the medical director of Planned Parenthood of Mid and South Michigan, and the Director of University of Michigan’s Fellowship in Family Planning. In these various capacities she serves as a clinician, teacher and a researcher. Her clinical work includes all aspects of general obstetrical and gynecological care, with a focus on miscarriage and family planning. Her research focuses on interdisciplinary approaches to women’s reproductive bodies and lives, in particular, the experiences of abortion workers and the clinical and ethical consequences of restrictive abortion legislation. She teaches on these issues in University of Michigan's medical school, school of public health, law school, school of social work, and the undergraduate college. In short, she practises medicine and research and teach at the intersection of the social and the biomedical, in the spaces between conventional disciplines.

Simon Henning
Cheshire & Merseyside Sexual Health Network Lead
Simon is employed as the Cheshire and Merseyside Sexual Health Network Lead. The network spans eight Primary care Trusts as well as local Acute Trusts and Third Sector Organisations. It is chiefly concerned with promoting high quality equitable services that meet the needs of the clients they serve, and the promotion of good sexual health. The network improves the commissioning of sexual health services by developing service specifications that highlight best practice, innovation and their outcomes. Prior to this he worked in Liverpool and Sefton in HIV prevention / sexual health promotion and latterly in the commissioning of sexual health services in Liverpool. He has commissioned abortion services for a number of the Merseyside PCTs and successfully introduced some significant improvements in referral for abortions. Simon is a nurse by profession, having trained in general and mental health nursing. He has a MSc in Practitioner Research, a BSc (Hons) in Nursing Studies and a post graduate Diploma in Applied Public Health.

Dominic Lawson
Journalist

Dr Ellie Lee
Senior Lecturer in Social Policy, University of Kent
Dr Ellie Lee’s a research interests are in the sociology of reproduction, health and the family. Her publications include Abortion, Motherhood and Mental Health (Aldine Transaction 2003) and Real Bodies (Palgrave 2002). She has recently been involved, with colleagues from the University of Southampton, in research projects about teenage pregnancy and abortion, and about second trimester abortion, the results of which are published in International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family, and Reproductive Health Matters.

Kirsten Moore
President & CEO Reproductive Health Technologies Project
The Reproductive Health Technologies Project (RHTP) is a national non profit advocacy organization that seeks to improve the political and commercial climate in the U.S. so that more and better contraceptive and reproductive health products are available to women. In recent years, RHTP played a principal role in defining the advocacy agenda for expanding awareness of and access to EC in the U.S., culminating in an August 2006 decision by the Food and Drug Administration to allow over-the-counter access to consumers aged 18 and older. In 2003, RHTP co-founded with the Union of Concerned Scientists of the Integrity of Science Working Group which crafted a highly successful earned media strategy that helped to make abuses of science in policymaking circles a favourite topic of editorial boards and cartoons. Most recently, RHTP launched a multi-pronged project to develop and evaluate new communications strategies for talking about abortion that acknowledge changes in our culture, technology, and demographics in the decades since Roe v Wade. Prior to joining RHTP, Kirsten managed projects focused on gender, reproductive health, and women’s autonomy for non profit and for profit clients. She received her Masters in Public Affairs from Princeton University in 1998.

Jon O’Brien
President, Catholics for Choice
Jon O’Brien heads the leading prochoice organization that addresses sexual and reproductive rights from a standpoint of culture, faith, and morality. Through his leadership, Jon O’Brien is committed to maintaining a visionary approach to reproductive health policy, focused on shaping and advancing the way people, especially opinion leaders and policy makers, think about these issues, and on promoting the organization’s goal of a world where all women and men are trusted to make sound and responsible decisions about their lives. Jon O’Brien speaks clearly and cogently against the challenges to sound reproductive rights and health policy put forward by the powerful Catholic hierarchy, which uses every means at its disposal, whether through financial strength, political clout, false claims of universal acceptance of its positions by Catholics, or outright threats to punish or publicly shame those who don’t follow its edicts, without question. With more than twenty years experience, Mr. O’Brien is a leader in developing global strategy surrounding reproductive health and rights issues. He has worked on five continents with local advocates and activists on policy development, advocacy and communications. Highly sought after for his expertise, O’Brien has increased communications and advocacy efficacy in the reproductive rights and health movement working with partners around the world - including family planning associations, medical practitioners, prochoice advocates, nonprofit leaders, and policy makers - to develop new ways to approach and discuss the abortion debate. During more than a decade with Catholics for Choice, Mr. O’Brien helped shape the tone of the organization’s international and domestic programs, and developed CFC’s expanding domestic outreach program to prochoice, Catholic legislators in the United States. Decision makers, including members of the UK House of Parliament, federal and state legislators in the US, members of the European Parliament and of national parliaments across Europe, often call upon him to articulate the prochoice, Catholic perspective to inform critical policy debates. Mr. O’Brien’s insights have stimulated discussion on reproductive rights and health through his frequent contributions in articles and opinion pieces in print media including the New York Times, the Economist, the International Herald Tribune, the Independent, and the National Catholic Reporter, as well as through his appearances on CNN and BBC, among many other news outlets. A life-long Catholic born and raised in the Republic of Ireland, Mr. O’Brien’s initial involvement in reproductive rights was sparked by his reaction to the great injustices that women especially face as a result of the Catholic hierarchy’s influence over public policy in the country. He began his professional career with the Irish Family Planning Association, where he worked on the front lines of reproductive health provision and was instrumental in developing the strategy that successfully engineered the downfall of Ireland’s restrictive contraceptive laws. Before coming to CFC, Mr. O’Brien also worked as program manager at the International Planned Parenthood Federation’s European Bureau in London, overseeing the federation’s work establishing family planning clinics in Eastern Europe during a time of immense political and social turmoil. Mr. O’Brien has been honored by the International Parliamentarians Conference on ICPD, recognized as a “Key to Choice” by Planned Parenthood Golden Gate, and received the Abby J. Leibman Pursuit of Justice Lifetime Achievement Award from the California Women’s Law Center in 2007.

Chris Plummer
Director of Service Development Strategy, bpas
Chris Plummer is the Director of Service Development Strategy at bpas and as such is responsible for the delivery of services, new business development and managing marketing activities. Previously he has had extensive experience at board level of outsourcing and managing the delivery of public services by Third Sector organisations. As well as health, he has worked in a variety of sectors, including waste and recycling, education and skills, care homes, housing, defence and the arts. He has worked in the UK, Germany, Italy and New Zealand. He has been an Army officer, having been commissioned into the Royal Artillery at 18; he also holds a degree in applied science, a masters degree in strategic financial management and is a chartered management accountant, chartered secretary and member of the chartered management institute and institute of directors.

Josephine Quintavalle
Director of Comment on Reproductive Ethics (CORE), a pro-life public interest group involved in the ethics of reproduction.
Josephine Quintavalle is a New Zealander and an English graduate, who settled in Italy in the late 60s where she married an Italian writer and had 5 sons. She has always been committed to pro-life feminism and on moving to London in 1980 worked for 20 years in voluntary work as a crisis pregnancy counsellor. She co-founded CORE in 1994, which focuses on the many ethical issues associated with human reproduction, particularly in vitro fertilisation, the status of the human embryo, and stem cell derivation. CORE is a member of ‘Alive & Kicking’, an alliance of pro-life groups campaigning to make abortion rare. She writes for and appears regularly in the media on pro-life issues.

Dr Sam Rowlands
Freelance specialist in contraception and reproductive health and Visiting Senior Lecturer at Warwick Medical School
Dr Rowlands was a general practitioner for 16 years and later clinical lead for community contraception services in Stevenage & North Hertfordshire. After conducting research at the Margaret Pyke Centre, he continued research in his practice and using the General Practice Research Database. From 2003 to 2005 he was Clinical Director of bpas. He currently works in the Department of Sexual Health at Worcestershire Primary Care Trust. He teaches on the MSc in Sexual & Reproductive Health at the University of Warwick. He is a Member of the Expert Witness Institute and regularly prepares expert reports for the assistance of the civil courts. He was Vice President of the Faculty of Family Planning & Reproductive Health Care from 1995 to 1997 and President of the Royal Society of Medicine Sexuality & Sexual Health Section from 2003 to 2005. He is the UK representative on the Board of the International Federation of Abortion and Contraception Professionals (FIAPAC) and a member of its Scientific Committee for the 2008 Congress in Berlin. He has published more than 60 papers in peer-reviewed journals. He gave both written and oral evidence in October 2007 to the House of Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology inquiry into scientific developments relating to the Abortion Act 1967.

Audrey Simpson
Director, fpa Northern Ireland
Audrey Simpson has been Director of fpa in Northern Ireland since 1988. She carried out research into the theory and practice of sex education in post primary schools in Northern Ireland for which she was awarded a PhD. She is co-author of two Northern Ireland wide research initiatives into sexual health and wellbeing, one of which focuses on people with learning disabilities. Audrey is also currently a Commissioner with the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland. fpa is the only organisation in Northern Ireland that provides non directive non judgemental counselling for women faced with an unplanned pregnancy and which publicly campaigns for women’s reproductive rights. A consequence of this is daily picketing outside fpa’s premises by anti-choice groups. Audrey has written extensively on the emotional and financial consequences experienced by women in Northern Ireland with regard to access to abortion services in and outside Northern Ireland and the impact this has on them and their families.

James Trussell
Director, Office of Population Research, Princeton University and Visiting Professor, The Hull York Medical School
James Trussell is the author or co-author of more than 200 scientific publications, primarily in the areas of reproductive health and demographic methodology. His recent research has been focused in three areas: emergency contraception, contraceptive failure, and the cost-effectiveness of contraception. He has actively promoted making emergency contraception more widely available as an important step in helping women reduce their risk of unintended pregnancy; in addition to his research on this topic, he maintains an emergency contraception website (not-2-late.com) and designed and launched a toll-free emergency contraception hotline (1-888-NOT-2-LATE). Dr. Trussell received his B.S. degree in mathematics from Davidson College in 1971, a B.Phil. in economics from Oxford University in 1973, and a Ph.D. in economics from Princeton University in 1975. He is a senior fellow at the Guttmacher Institute and a member of the board of directors of the NARAL Pro-Choice America Foundation, The Guttmacher Institute, and the Society of Family Planning, and a member of the National Medical Committee of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. He serves on the editorial advisory committees of Contraception and Contraceptive Technology Update. Recent publications include Contraceptive Technology: Nineteenth Revised Edition, with Robert A Hatcher, Anita L. Nelson, Willard Cates, Felicia Stewart, and Deborah Kowal. Ardent Media: New York NY, 2007.

Dvarte Vilar
FPA Portugal Executive Director
Dvarte Vilar has been Executive Director of the Portuguese APF (FPA) since 1988. Associated Professor in the Social Work Institute in the Universidade Lusíada in Lisbon. Researcher and teacher in the area of Sex Education and Reproductive Health. Degree in Sociology from ISCTE in 1981 and a PhD in Sociology of Communication and Culture from ISCTE in 2000. Research Capacity Grade in Sexology by the Salamanca University in 1999