The guest speaker at the Winelands chapter of Mensa SA’s monthly meeting, tomorrow, Thursday January 19, at 7.15pm, in Somerset West, is Professor Sean Davison, who will present a neuro-scientific rationale for assisted suicide and euthanasia.
Professor Davison is a professor in the department of biotechnology and head of the forensic DNA laboratory at the University of the Western Cape.
His lab specialises in identifying individuals from highly degraded DNA, and identified the anti-apartheid activists exhumed from mass graves revealed during the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings.
He was the co-founder of the Innocence Project SA, an organisation that seeks the exoneration of wrongfully imprisoned people on the basis of DNA testing that was not done at the time of their trial.
In 2010, while awaiting trial on a charge of the attempted murder of his terminally-ill mother, he founded the organisation DignitySA, which seeks a law change in South Africa to allow for assisted dying for terminally ill people. He pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of assisted suicide and served a five month house arrest sentence in Dunedin, New Zealand.
Professor Davison holds a PhD in Molecular Virology, and is currently researching cognitive neuroscience.
If you would like to attend as a guest, entry is free, or for more information about Mensa, email to wnl.secretary@mensa.org.za, or WhatsApp/SMS 083 462 9585.
