He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Oxford West and Abingdon from 1997 to 2010, losing his seat in the 2010 general election by 176 votes to Conservative Nicola Blackwood.

Evan Harris was born on 21 October 1965 in Sheffield, West Riding of Yorkshire, the son of South African Jewish parents (his father was a medical professor).

[3] Harris began his career at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital in 1991 as a Pre-Registration House Officer (junior doctor).

[3] Harris held the position of local British Medical Association representative and negotiator from 1992 to 1994, following which he was elected to the BMA's National Council.

Harris gained the seat for the Liberal Democrats with a majority of 6,285, making his maiden speech on 21 May 1997,[9] and remained the MP there until 2010.

Following the election of Charles Kennedy as party leader in 1999, Harris became spokesman on Higher Education and Women's issues.

[14] Harris is pro-choice on abortion, and supports the right of mentally competent, terminally ill people to take their own lives under certain circumstances.

[19] For a number of years before the 2010 general election Harris' views on various social and theological matters had led to criticism within certain parts of the media.

[22] Further leaflets were distributed by the unaffiliated Reverend Lynda Rose, also referring to Harris as 'Dr Death', and criticising him for his secularism, support for abortion, embryo research and assisted suicide.

[23] In contrast to these criticisms, Harris received support from a number of humanist and atheist figures, including Ben Goldacre,[24] Simon Singh and Dave Gorman.

Post-election analysis in the Oxford Mail suggested that Harris' strident secular opinions appeared to have "alienated a sufficiently large percentage of the electorate to lose what was considered a relatively safe seat for the Liberal Democrats".

[35] This was in turn critiqued by Jonathan Chaplin, who wrote that 'the manifesto contains troubling elements, which serve to undermine his professed support for the right to manifest religious belief.