David Albert Jones is Director of the Anscombe Bioethics Centre, Oxford; he was appointed in 2010. He is also a Research Fellow at Blackfriars Hall, Oxford University and Professor of Bioethics at St Mary’s University, Twickenham. Professor Jones read Natural Sciences and Philosophy at Cambridge (1984-1987), and Theology at Oxford (1992-2000). In 2002 he was appointed Senior Lecturer at St Mary’s University, Twickenham where he helped establish an MA in Bioethics. Subsequently, he was appointed Professor in Bioethics and co-founded the Centre for Bioethics and Emerging Technologies. Professor Jones’s doctorate was published as Approaching the End: A Theological Exploration of Death and Dying (Oxford University Press, 2007). His previous book The Soul of the Embryo: An Enquiry into the Status of the Human Embryo in the Christian Tradition (Continuum, 2004) was short-listed for the Michael Ramsey Prize.
He is Vice-Chair of the Ministry of Defence Research Ethics Committee, and an examiner for the Society of Apothecaries Diploma in the Philosophy of Medicine, He is a member of the Healthcare Executive Group and the Department of Social Justice of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales. He is a member of the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the EU (COMECE) Working Group on Ethics in Research and Medicine and is a Corresponding Member of the Pontifical Academy for Life. In 2009, he was a member of a working party of the General Medical Council which helped draft its 2010 guidance on Treatment and Care Towards the End of Life and was also on the National Reference Group of the Liverpool Care Pathway for the Dying Patient. He has contributed to a number of documents of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, including A Practical Guide to the Spiritual Care of the Dying Person (CTS, 2010). In 2017, he was awarded the Paul Ramsey Award for Excellence in Bioethics. His most recent book, co-edited with Chris Gastmans and Calum MacKellar is Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide: Lessons from Belgium (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017).
Professor Jones has written over 200 book chapters and articles of which the most recent is ‘Last rites for last wrongs: Pastoral accompaniment of Catholics who have requested euthanasia or physician assisted suicide’ Pastoral Review 17. 4 (2021):32-26. He has also submitted over 80 responses to official governmental and non-governmental bodies including the Australia Senate Community Affairs References Committee Inquiry into the Mitochondrial Donation Law Reform (Maeve’s Law) Bill 2021. In September 2021, he gave the Bioethics & Healthcare Ethics Annual Lecture at The University of Notre Dame Australia on ‘Voluntary Assisted Dying and Suicide Prevention’.
