22 Facts About Merle Hoffman

Merle Hoffman was born on March 6,1946 and is an American journalist and activist.

Shortly after New York State legalized abortion in 1970, three years before the Supreme Court's Roe v Wade decision legalized abortion nationally, Hoffman helped establish one of the country's first ambulatory abortion centers, Flushing Women's Medical Center in 1971.

Merle Hoffman co-founded the National Abortion Federation in 1976, the first professional organization of abortion providers in the US, and was its first president.

Merle Hoffman founded the New York Pro-Choice Coalition in 1985.

Merle Hoffman is the publisher of On the Issues magazine, which began as a print publication in 1983 and then became an online publication in 2008.

Merle Hoffman was awarded the Front Page Award for Political Commentary in 2010 from the Newswoman's Club of New York.

Merle Hoffman was born in Philadelphia and raised in New York City.

Merle Hoffman attended the Social Psychology Doctoral Program at the City University of New York Graduate Center from 1972 to 1975.

Merle Hoffman was among the first to urge women to question their doctor about everything from their training and background to the reason for prescribing certain medications.

In November, 1974, Merle Hoffman was the initiator and moderator for New York City's first Women's Health Forum, with speakers including Barbara Ehrenreich and Congresswoman Bella Abzug.

In 1975, Merle Hoffman helped develop and introduce a program to diagnosis women with breast cancer in an outpatient center.

When Merle Hoffman learned about the lack of birth control options available to women in Russia, she organized and led a trip of physicians and counselors from Choices on a well-publicized educational exchange there.

In 1982, Merle Hoffman produced, directed, and wrote the documentary film Abortion: A Different Light, and in 1986 she produced and hosted the first feminist TV show, MH: On the Issues, a syndicated 30-minute cable TV show.

Merle Hoffman's writing has appeared in numerous publications and journals including the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology and the Journal of the American Medical Women's Association.

Merle Hoffman began a newsletter for Choices in 1982 which developed into On the Issues: The Progressive Women's Quarterly, an acclaimed national magazine with an international following, featuring interviews by Merle Hoffman with notable activists and thinkers, including Andrea Dworkin, Congressman John Lewis, Kate Millett, and Elie Wiesel.

Merle Hoffman was one of the first activists to criticize Operation Rescue, an organization dedicated to ending access to abortion by blockading clinics.

When Operation Rescue announced it would shut down abortion services in New York City for a week in the spring of 1988, the New York Pro-Choice Coalition, founded by Merle Hoffman, responded by rebranding those days "Reproductive Freedom Week," organizing a counter protest that drew 1,300 activists and supporters, and dispatching supporters to ensure that every clinic or doctor's offices Operation Rescue targeted remained open.

In 1989 Merle Hoffman publicly challenged New York City's Cardinal John O'Connor's support of Operation Rescue, which she deemed "violent to women" by organizing the first pro-choice civil disobedience action outside St Patrick's Cathedral in New York City.

Merle Hoffman received the "Bella" Award from the Bella Abzug Leadership Institute, founded by Liz Abzug, daughter of the late Congresswoman, Bella Abzug, in 2015.

Merle Hoffman's essay did "a brilliant job with a controversial subject," said syndicated columnist Lenore Skenazy, who presented the Opinion Writing Award to her at a dinner and ceremony in New York on Nov 4,2010.

In 2011, Merle Hoffman endowed a director's position for sustained leadership of the Duke University Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture.

In 2005, Merle Hoffman adopted a three-year-old girl from Siberia whom she named Sasha.