Maureen McTeer is one of Canada’s most knowledgeable speakers on:

• Science / Medicine & Ethics
• Donation and Transplantation in the Context of 21st Century Health Care
• Education
• Health Care
• Technology
• Institutional Change

A well-known lawyer and social activist, Maureen is the best selling author of four books, including Tough Choices: Living and Dying in the 21st Century, and her recent autobiography In My Own Name. She has spent the past two decades speaking and writing about how science and technology affect our health and the everyday decisions of our lives. In simple and understandable language, she explains the current and complicated issues of modern medical research, such as stem cell research, cloning, organ donation and xenotransplantation (use of animal organs and tissue for human transplants).

  In specialized seminars, she explains the law on advance directives, assisted suicide and euthanasia; and then invites her audience to articulate what values and preferences will guide their decisions about death and dying. From there, she helps them actually prepare a living will that will enshrine these values and legally allow them to keep control of their health care decisions at the end of their lives.

  In 2004, she graduated with a Masters in Biotechnological Law and Ethics from the University of Sheffield in England, where her thesis analysed the patenting of human genes. She continues to criticize the awarding of broad patents on the human genome and human genes, which she argues stall medical genetic research and limit discoveries that can lead to new drugs and therapies for such genetic conditions as hereditary breast and ovarian cancers.

  She has been an outspoken advocate for organ donation and has addressed several prominent groups in Canada and the U.S.A. on ways in which we can increase organ donation and encourage ground-breaking research, including stem cell research, that will allow us to use our own tissue to one day build the healthy organs we need to live.

  While Ms. McTeer is best known for her role as a social and legal advocate for the rights of women and children, and for women’s health research (including as a spokesperson for the Osteoporosis Society of Canada), she is also a much sought-after speaker for her inspirational stories of her life. Since publication of her autobiography, In My Own Name, in 2003, Maureen McTeer has travelled extensively across Canada to speak to women’s groups about how women can reach their goals in life.

  Maureen is fluently bilingual and can address all audiences in both English and French.