Merle Hoffman Editorial Archive

2013

The Love of Strangers

by Merle Hoffman “Patient #4 in recovery was moved by your work and wants to see you.” When my assistant’s …

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2012

Where the Reality of Abortion Resides: Intimate Wars

by Merle Hoffman When I first opened a clinic for women’s abortion care in Flushing, New York in 1971, women …

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2011

Patient Power – The Reluctant Revolution

by Merle Hoffman When I first opened a clinic for women’s abortion care in New York in 1971, women finally …

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2011

All Wars Are Intimate Wars

by Merle Hoffman All wars are intimate. For women whose bodies have become battlegrounds in the struggle for reproductive freedom, …

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2011

Feminism Is As Feminism Does

by Merle Hoffman All my life there was a kind of disconnect between my internal and external realities. “Funny,” people …

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2010

The Courage of No

by Merle Hoffman Children are natural resistance fighters. From the time they realize that they have the agency (if not …

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2009

Selecting The Same Sex

by Merle Hoffman There is one place where the definition of gender remains binary – in the womb. When it …

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2009

Divide, Conquer and Sell

by Merle Hoffman Growing up in Philadelphia in the 50s, girls were labeled sluts if they dressed provocatively, let boys …

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2009

Higher Ground, Not Common Ground

by Merle Hoffman As a person who feels that war should be the strategy of last resort, I still like to …

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2009

On the Murder and Continuing Inspiration
of Dr. George Tiller

by Merle Hoffman In our Spring ’09 edition, On The Issues Magazine writers and artists discuss feminist and progressive values …

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2009

Revolution Lite

by Merle Hoffman We asked leading thinkers to describe New Revolutions We Need for a feminist and progressive future. Here’s one response. Oscar …

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2008

A Message from the Publisher – Plus ca change

by Merle Hoffman Welcome to the May/June 2008 edition of On The Issues Magazine Online, the first full edition of our new Internet …

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2008

A Message from the Publisher: Merle Hoffman

Twenty-five years ago I began On the Issues as a newsletter of Choices Women’s Medical Center in an effort to …

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1999

Replacing PROZAC with PLATO

by Merle Hoffman THE NEW PHILOSOPHICAL COUNSELINGInterview with Lou Marinoff by Merle Hoffman Call me elitist, but I have always …

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1998

Poetry Redux

by Merle Hoffmnan I had gone to bed in my habitual way — very late, with some difficulty, the muted …

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1998

What’s a Feminist to Do?

by Merle Hoffman No passionate love letters, no dark night of the soul; just a demand to kiss it — …

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1998

IRAN: Notes from the Interior

by Merle Hoffman You’re going where? The insistent questioning by family and friends reverberated in my head as I flew over …

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1998

27 Years, but Who’s Counting? Thoughts on yet another Roe v. Wade

by Merle Hoffman For the first time, women were in control of patient referrals and clinics, while physicians were brought …

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1997

Facing the Dragon: Reflections on Female Heroism

by Merle Hoffman In a world with no more Wests to conquer or empires to build, where risk-taking comes packaged …

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1997

Warrior Healers of South Africa

by Merle Hoffman “We the People of South AfricaRecognize the injustices of our pasthonor those who suffered for justice and …

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1997

Fatal Denial?

by Merle Hoffman The tragic case of Amy Grossberg and Brian Peterson It was just another baby in the garbage, …

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1996

Happiness and the Feminist Mind

by Merle Hoffman Americans are a nation of people who feel supremely entitled to happiness. After all, in the first …

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1996

Peak Experience

by Merle Hoffman Everest — avatar of the Himalayas.Everest — whom the Nepalese call Sagamartha and the Tibetans call Chomolungma …

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1996

Marriage As Realpolitik

by MERLE HOFFMAN Elizabeth I had a proper perspective on political marriage. Having seen both her mother and her stepmother …

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1996

Trojan Horses

by Merle Hoffman M E R L E H O F F M A N | O N T H …

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1995

Body Ethics

by Merle Hoffman The symptoms arrived a few years ago. At first I experienced them as a generalized discomfort, amorphous …

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1995

Abortion Providers: The New “Communists”

by Merle Hoffman I KNEW THAT THINGS HAD CHANGED WHEN I WAS HANDED a button that read “I’m Pro-Choice and …

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1995

Tragedy, American-Style

by Merle Hoffman For in other ways, a woman Is full of fear, defenseless, dreads the sight of cold Steel; …

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1995

Heroism: Theory and Practice

by Merle Hoffman By nature, I am a romantic and have had warrior fantasies since my early adolescence. Surrounding myself …

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1994

OTI Dialogue: Congressman John Lewis and Andrea Dworkin Towards a Revolution in Values

by Merle Hoffman The Congressman arrived flushed with triumph. He had just been part of the victorious vote on the …

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1994

High Noon in Moscow

by Merle Hoffman Somewhere in the course of planning my latest journey to Russia I lost my fear of flying. …

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1994

A Discussion with Liz Holtzman and Alice Vachss

by Merle Hoffman Why haven’t candidates, especially, women candidates, made violence against women – and specifically rape – a central …

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1994

Praise the lord and kill the doctor

by Merle Hoffman Question: What would you do if you found yourself in a room with Hitler, Mussolini, and an …

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