Joan Dunlop

Joan Marie Dunlop (née Banks, May 20, 1934 - June 29, 2012) was a British women's health advocate and activist. She was the first president of the International Women's Health Coalition (IWHC).

Early life and education Dunlop was born in London to a British father, Sir Maurice Banks, and an American mother, Anne Banks.

As a young teenager, Dunlop visited the US, she then decided she wanted to live there. She applied and was accepted at Vassar College but her parents insisted that she attend the Queen's Secretarial College in London. As a young woman, she had an illegal abortion in England, and her experience "fueled her campaign to improve women's reproductive choices." She also worked in the budget office of the Mayor John V. Lindsay. Part of her motivation in leaving a good job and taking on the task of running the IWHC was that she was "angry at the rise of the anti-abortion movement in the United States" which she considered an organizing tool for a conservative political agenda. She was a leading voice for women’s health and rights around the world and believed that “his was not about abortion, this was about women.”

After retiring from the IWHC in 1998, she worked to put together a women's group to lobby for women's voices in United States foreign policy: A Women's Lens on Global Issues.

Death Dunlop died after a battle with cancer on June 29, 2012 in Connecticut.