In 1971 (two years before the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision to legalise abortion in the United States), Hoffman founded Choices, an abortion clinic in New York. As a medical provider, she pioneered 'patient power' encouraging women to participate in their own health care decisions. And going against even her own expectations for her life after fifty, she adopted a child and writes about her experience as a mother. Merle Hoffman has been on the front lines of the feminist movement, a fierce warrior in the battle for choice.