An experience early in Merle Hoffman’s career as a counselor solidified her life’s mission. She was asked to speak to and comfort a woman who was struggling with the decision to have an abortion. Holding that woman’s hand on that difficult day started Hoffman on the path of advocating for the reproductive rights of women everywhere. Hoffman is the co-founder of Choices, one of the country’s first ambulatory abortion centers that opened two years before Roe v. Wade. Hoffman is also endowed the directorship of the Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture at Duke University and she’s the author of a new memoir. She joins host Frank Stasio to talk about her book, “Intimate Wars: The Life and Times of the Woman Who Brought Abortion from the Back Alley to the Boardroom” (Feminist Press/2012).
Intimate Wars
