Activist

The jury views Donna Dickenson’s work as an innovative contribution to critical reflection on the large normative questions of our times and the public debate on dilemmas in the biomedical world.—Jury report, Fourth International Spinoza Lens Award 2006.

Spinoza Lens Award>>

Donna has served as a clinical ethicist working with mental health patients at two UK psychiatric hospitals, chaired an important Open University training initiative for people working with dying patients, and written briefing papers for major government reviews. She is a member of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists Ethics Committee and was asked to give an expert opinion to the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee. Now she is working with the well-known NGO, The Corner House, to improve public awareness of conflicts between women’s reproductive rights and the new biotechnologies.

Abroad, Donna originated and led an EC-funded project, the Network for European Women’s Rights (NEWR), which brought together a wide range of organisations working in Eastern and Western Europe on such crucial issues as trafficking and political representation. In 2004 she was one of only two Western bioethicists invited to work with Maori populations in New Zealand on issues of research ethics affecting indigenous peoples.

Donna’s many media appearances include a feature interview in The Times on her work in chairing the ‘Death and Dying’ course, commentary in The Guardian, and a three-page interview in the Dutch newspaper Trouw when she received the Spinoza award. She has appeared on television news and feature programmes and is a regular contributor to Radio Four.  Her interview on ‘Woman’s Hour’ about the Spinoza award and women’s reproductive rights can be heard here.