Merle Hoffman to release new book
Longtime abortion rights activist and provider urges people to be less complacent
Merle Hoffman thinks that women forgot that there was a price to pay for reproductive freedom. Women stopped approaching the issue with a sense of urgency because they felt it was settled.
“Everybody metaphorically put their feet up on the desk,” Hoffman said.
Hoffman, the CEO of Choices Women’s Medical Center, an abortion provider in Queens, will release a book later this year called Choices: A Post-Roe Abortion Rights Manifesto. Hoffman previously had written a compelling memoir Intimate Wars: The Life and Times of the Woman Who Brought Abortion from the Back Alley to the Board Room. She’s been in the movement for decades and has many stories from her involvement.
When she sat down to speak about her forthcoming work, she reiterated how the lack of historical understanding came back to haunt young feminists.
“They lost an edge, they lost vigilance,” Hoffman said. “They lost the knowledge.”
That’s something I’ve learned when I spoke to young women as well. I remember teaching one student and telling her that they used to and still threaten to bomb abortion clinics. Additionally, many young people don’t stay abreast of any current events and lack the civic understanding to reform things through the political and legal system. My own opinion is that you can’t make a difference if you don’t understand how government works.
Hoffman described the abortion debate as a war. She always tried to understand and respect her adversary. Or at least their political cunning. Many people today underestimate how intelligent the other side is in advancing their agenda. You see that when they’re described as unsophisticated on social media. When you engage their literature though and prepare counterarguments, you see how nuanced and even cunningly misleading it can be. They’re also effective at misrepresenting the issue and consequently convincing people–for instance minorities–that abortion providers and advocates are out to get them.
“They're always demonstrating,” Hoffman said. “They're always there. They're creative. They're always responsive.”
Hoffman compares the reproductive rights movement to others within liberalism. With something so common as abortion, she thinks there should be as much enthusiasm for it as there are other causes.
“American as apple pie,” Hoffman said. “Where are they? Where are they? I always think about the Black Lives Matter protests. They really achieved some stuff. Some things were performative. There was blowback, but definitely, definitely, they had a major impact. I'd like to see that for this.”
I’ve read articles and books in which people discouraged women and men from taking photos at rallies because it was seen as performative. But I never understood the rationale behind that. Sharing photos at rallies is essentially free political advertising and makes the movement trendier. It would also connect the exercise of sexuality with a cause, which makes it appeal to young people.
“It's the right to decide when and whether or not someone will be a mother, when or whether or not someone will reproduce.”
“That is what has to be stressed,” Hoffman said. “If we are forced to bear children against our will, we become slaves, basically breeders. People don't like to hear that.”