About Me
Dr Leslie Cannold is an author, commentator, and activist. She has a BA from Wesleyan University in the USA, a Masters Degree in Medical Ethics from Monash University and a PHD from the University of Melbourne. Her books include the award-winning The Abortion Myth and What, No Baby? which made the Australian Financial Review’s top 101 books list. Her first novel, The Book of Rachael was published in 2011 by Text.
Leslie is an award-winning columnist, oft-noted as one of Australia’s leading public thinkers. She has been listed alongside Professor Peter Singer, Professor Gustav Nossal and Inga Clendinnen as one of Australia’s top 20 public intellectuals and recently made the Power Index’s Top Ten List of most influential brains. She was a finalist in the best science tweet contest for Science Week 2010 and in 2011 was honoured as Australian Humanist of the Year.
You can hear Leslie talk ethics on 702 ABC Sydney, Brisbane radio 4BC and the 7pm Project on Network Ten. She reads the morning papers with Virginia Trioli & Michael Rowland on ABC News Breakfast and her Moral Dilemma column appears on Sundays in the Sydney Sun-Herald. Since the 1990’s, Leslie’s views have appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, Crikey!, The Herald Sun, ABC The Drum Unleashed, The Courier Mail and the national broadsheet The Australian. Radio and TV appearances include ABC Radio National, triple j, Q & A, Today Tonight, The 7:30 Report, A Current Affair, The Catch-Up, The Einstein Factor, SBS Insight, 9am with David & Kim, and Lateline.
Leslie is an adjunct Senior Lecturer at the Monash Institute of Health Services Research and is the research or community member of several Victorian boards and committees, including the Physiotherapy and Nursing & Midwifery Boards. She mentors young thinkers and writers through the Writing Centre for Scholars and Researchers at the University of Melbourne and the Australian Society of Authors. Leslie is President of Reproductive Choice Australia, a national coalition of pro-choice organisations that played a key role in removing the ban on the abortion drug RU486 in 2006 and of Pro Choice Victoria, which was instrumental in the decriminalisation of abortion in Victoria in 2008. She is a Dying with Dignity ambassador for law reform and co-founder of No Chicks, No Excuses.
Leslie is the lead vocalist for the Melbourne-based rock cover band Speedy Fish.
Books
The Book of Rachael What if the man you loved betrayed your brother? Two thousand years ago, as a charismatic young preacher from Nazareth was gathering followers among the people of Galilee, his sister swept floors and dreamed of learning to read.
What, No Baby? takes us on journey into the lives of contemporary women who plan to have it all - marriage, motherhood and work - yet have been derailed by reluctant men, insatiably demanding jobs and ever-climbing expectations of what it takes to be a "good" mother.
The Abortion Myth forges a new women-centred abortion ethic capable of preserving a woman's right to control her body and her freedom to choose or reject motherhood.