CHOICES Institute of Women’s Health was founded by Merle Hoffman in 2015 to help address the global need for education and services relating to women’s and girls’ health, well-being, and ability to thrive and achieve their potential as full human beings. We develop, sponsor, and promote educational and training efforts, services, and programs in the U.S.A. and internationally.
CHOICES Women’s Medical Center is one of the country’s first abortion centers, in 1971, two years before the U.S. Supreme Court legalized abortion nationally. She continues to serve as President and CEO, implementing and expanding her initial vision of empowering women and girls through reproductive choice and the best care possible.
Merle Hoffman is an internationally known leader in the struggle for women’s rights, a healthcare pioneer, founder of women’s health, political, and reproductive rights organizations and a prize-winning writer and publisher. Her work spans 50 years and continues today, proving to be more essential and relevant than ever in the ongoing fight for women’s human rights, including the ability to make their own reproductive choices.
On the Issues Magazine, which began as a print publication in 1983 and went online in 2008. It featured provocative interviews with pathbreaking leaders in the feminist, civil, and human rights and environmental movements, among other articles.
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 1984 she began working with Russian hospitals and doctors to develop CHOICES East, the first feminist outpatient medical center in Russia.
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A Note About Our Use of Language: CHOICES understands and respects that not every person with the capacity for pregnancy identifies as a woman. We respect each individual’s gender identity, expression, and experience, and desire to be helpful and compassionate to all who need information about abortion or support. As an expression of this concern, CHOICES initiated the first Trans Health Care Program in New York State in 2016. While we do make an effort to use gender-inclusive language (person/people/they/them/patient) throughout our website, we do of course use woman/women/girls. We do so in order to acknowledge the long history of gender discrimination targeting women, the specialized health care that we provide, our experience with hundreds of thousands of women using our services and the biological reality that only people with uteruses are biologically capable of become pregnant and carrying a fetus.
CHOICES Institute of Women’s Health, Inc. is organized and operated exclusively for charitable purposes within the meaning of Section 501(c) (3) of the Internal Revenue Code | Website & SEO By: Partners For Choice