Dr Anna Glasier

Doctor of Medicine

Wednesday 8 July 2026 - Orator: Dr Christy Burden

Today we gather to honour a woman whose career has transformed the landscape of reproductive health across the world. It is my privilege to introduce Dr Anna Glasier OBE, a clinician, researcher, advocate, and global leader whose work has changed the lives of millions of women and families.

For more than three decades, Dr Glasier has stood at the forefront of reproductive medicine, shaping clinical practice, public policy, and international guidance. Her name is synonymous with emergency contraception – a field in which she is recognised globally as one of the most influential experts of her generation. Her research has been instrumental in the deregulation and wider availability of emergency contraception in the UK and internationally, ensuring that women everywhere have access to safe, evidence‑based options at moments of profound vulnerability. Few clinicians can say their work has directly changed national legislation; Anna’s has done so repeatedly.

Her journey began here in the South West, graduating MB ChB from the University of Bristol in 1976, having completed both 1st MB and an intercalated degree in Psychology. She was part of the very first cohort of medical students permitted to undertake a Psychology BSc. The Psychology department, perhaps surprised by the determination of four intercalating medics, noted that they performed exceptionally well–so well, in fact, that rumours circulated that no first‑class honours were awarded that year because the department could not bring themselves to give one to a medic.

After house jobs and Senior House Officer posts, she moved to Edinburgh to train in obstetrics and gynaecology, which was home to a thriving research community within the Medical Research Council Centre for Reproductive Biology. Anna received a Royal College of Obstetricians & Gynaecologists fellowship and completed an MD on the effects of breastfeeding on fertility. At the same time, the World Health Organization’s Human Reproduction Programme was exploring lactational amenorrhoea as a method of contraception, and Anna joined its Natural Methods Task Force. One opportunity led to another: she became involved with the International Planned Parenthood Federation, with CONRAD in the United States, and ultimately served as Chair of the Scientific and Technical Advisory Group of the WHO programme. These roles took her around the world and forged lifelong international collaborations.

After completing her O&G training, she became the first person to complete RCOG subspecialty training in Reproductive Medicine. In 1989 she was appointed a clinical scientist in the Centre for Reproductive Biology and an honorary consultant at the Royal Infirmary. Anna took a consultant role at Edinburgh’s busy and forward‑thinking Family Planning and Well Woman Service, despite colleagues who felt sexual and reproductive health was not a ‘proper job’. Over the next 20 years she proved them wrong. She transformed the service into what we would now call a Women’s Health Hub: a one‑stop, self‑referral centre offering contraception, abortion care, cervical screening, colposcopy, menopause services, adolescent gynaecology, PMS/PMDD care, sexual problems clinics, and STI services. Throughout this period she continued to lead internationally-recognised research on contraception and abortion.

Her proudest achievements lie in improving access to contraception. Her 1993 BJOG article, ‘Emergency Contraception: Time for Deregulation’, set the agenda for decades of policy change. She helped secure pharmacy‑medicine status for levonorgestrel emergency contraception in the UK in 1999 and over‑the‑counter approval in the USA. She then led research enabling the approval of ulipristal acetate – first as a prescription medicine, then as a pharmacy medicine across Europe. She has long campaigned for emergency contraception to be available with a general sales licence, arguing – based on evidence – that timely access is essential and that moral discomfort should not impede women’s health.

Her work continued with the progestogen‑only pill, which she helped secure as a pharmacy medicine in the UK in 2021 and over‑the‑counter in the USA in 2023 – just in time, as political shifts threatened reproductive rights. Her career has always been shaped by a clear principle: women deserve autonomy, dignity, and access to evidence‑based care.

Dr Glasier has published more than 250 peer‑reviewed papers, served on the Boards of the Population Council and British Pregnancy Advisory Service, contributed to RCOG Council and its Executive Committee, and received numerous honours including an OBE, an honorary professorship from The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, and now four honorary degrees.

In 2023, following the death of her husband, the distinguished gynaecologist Professor David Baird, she was appointed Scotland’s first Women’s Health Champion working with ministers, clinicians, academics, and the third sector to improve outcomes for women and girls. She has chaired national expert groups on eliminating cervical cancer and on abortion law reform – work that is already shaping political manifestos and future legislation.

Vice-Chancellor, in recognition of her outstanding contributions to reproductive medicine, her leadership in national and global women’s health, and her lifelong commitment to improving the lives of women across the world, I present to you Annabelle Glasier as eminently worthy of the degree of Doctor of Medicine, honoris causa.