{{Short description|American lawyer and activist}} {{infobox person |name = Alice Wolfson |alma_mater = Barnard College |known_for = Women's health |occupation = {{flatlist| *Lawyer *activist }} }}
'''Alice Wolfson''' is an American activist and attorney who specializes in women's health care. A Barnard College graduate and former Fulbright Scholar, she is a veteran political activist in women's reproductive health issues, a lawyer, and a co-founder of the National Women's Health Network.
== Activism ==
Wolfson gained prominence for her role at the Nelson Pill Hearings on Capitol Hill, where she and other soon-to-be prominent health feminists were galvanized by their success at warning women of the Pill's dangerous side effects.<ref name="Kissling2010">{{cite web |url=https://www.menstruationresearch.org/2010/05/25/how-the-pill-gave-birth-to-the-women%E2%80%99s-health-movement/ |title=How the Pill Gave Birth to the Women's Health Movement |last=Kissling |first=Elizabeth |website=MenstruationResearch.org |date=May 25, 2010 |access-date=June 10, 2025}}</ref> Wolfson invited fellow feminist Barbara Seaman to testify at the hearings, and worked with her to eventually form the National Women's Health Network.<ref name="Goldman2000">{{cite book |url=https://www.google.nl/books/edition/Women_and_Health/zSCgj8LXFHAC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22Alice+Wolfson%22&pg=PA29&printsec=frontcover |title=Women and Health |editor-last1=Goldman |editor-first1=Marline B. |editor-last2=Hatch |editor-first2=Maureen |publisher=Elsevier Science |page=29 |date=2000 |isbn=9780122881459 |access-date=June 10, 2025}}</ref> Wolfson's group consistently made national news at the time, and led to the public's outrage about women's health misconceptions.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Senate Hearings on the Pill {{!}} American Experience {{!}} PBS |url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/pill-senate-holds-hearings-pill-1970/ |access-date=2025-10-20 |website=www.pbs.org |language=en}}</ref> Wolfson's activism is credited with opening up the FDA to consumer observers in order to better ensure that women's health would be addressed.<ref name="Seaman2012">{{cite book |url=https://www.google.nl/books/edition/Women_and_Health/zSCgj8LXFHAC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22Alice+Wolfson%22&pg=PA29&printsec=frontcover |title=Voices of the Women's Health Movement, Volume 1 |editor-last1=Seaman |editor-first1=Barbara |editor-last2=Eldridge |editor-first2=Laura |publisher=Seven Stories Press |page=54 |date=February 14, 2012 |isbn=9781609804459 |access-date=June 10, 2025}}</ref> Her efforts also led to the FDA requiring medication package inserts with birth control pills, the first ever prescription drug insert in the United States.<ref name="Klein2021">{{cite web |url=https://journeytolegacy.com/pioneer-in-womens-health-1960s/ |title=A Pioneer In Women's Health in the 1960s |last=Klein |first=Joanna |website=JourneyToLegacy.com |date=July 26, 2021 |access-date=June 10, 2025}}</ref>
Wolfson is also notable for her discovery on intersectionality between race, class, and healthcare in the late 1960s to early 1970s.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/j.ctv2b6z7zm |title=Women's Activist Organizing in US History: A University of Illinois Press Anthology |date=2022 |publisher=University of Illinois Press |isbn=978-0-252-04434-2 |doi=10.5406/j.ctv2b6z7zm.13}}</ref> Through her efforts in the D.C. Women's Liberation Movement (DCWLM), she was able to realize that women of color and/or women of lower social classes were more likely to seek out unsafe abortion methods because of inequalities in the healthcare system.<ref>{{Cite book |last=White |first=Deborah Gray |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1j0pthn |title=U.S. Women's History: Untangling the Threads of Sisterhood |date=2017 |publisher=Rutgers University Press |isbn=978-0-8135-7584-1}}</ref>
In 1968, Wolfson signed the “Writers and Editors War Tax Protest” pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War.<ref>“Writers and Editors War Tax Protest” January 30, 1968 ''New York Post''</ref> In 1970, Wolfson was one of 17 women that contributed to writing the first issue of the impactful feminist paper, ''Off Our Backs.''<ref>{{Cite web |title=Vol. 1, No. 1, FEBRUARY 27, 1970 of Off Our Backs on JSTOR |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/i25770942 |access-date=2025-10-23 |website=www.jstor.org |language=en}}</ref> In the 1990s, she worked to obtain damages for women adversely affected by breast implants.<ref name="Boodman1992">{{cite news |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/wellness/1992/06/23/breast-implants/e9b7ebc2-d071-4c80-998c-940f2260c98b/ |title=Now Women Are Having a Hard Time Getting Them Out |last=Boodman |first=Sandra G. |newspaper=The Washington Post |date=June 22, 1992 |access-date=June 10, 2025}}</ref>
Wolfson was featured in the 2014 documentary film ''She's Beautiful When She's Angry'', where she advocated for "changing the whole paradigm" of under-represented women's rights in society.<ref name="Falek2015">{{cite web |url=https://awolau.org/1685/print/culture/review-film-shes-beautiful-when-shes-angry-and-the-history-of-the-feminist-movement/ |title=Review Film: "She's Beautiful When She's Angry" and the history of the feminist movement |last=Falek |first=Rachel |website=awolau.org |date=February 20, 2015 |access-date=June 10, 2025}}</ref>
=== Women's health ===
In the first issue of ''Off Our Backs'', Wolfson writes about how the FDA had suppressed information from a study done about the pill's potentially fatal effects on women, which raised many safety concerns about the contraceptive.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Wolfson |first=Alice |date=1970 |title=answers to pill advocates |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25770947 |journal=Off Our Backs |volume=1 |issue=1 |pages=3–3 |issn=0030-0071}}</ref> Wolfson also argues that the choice of birth control method belongs to the individual woman, as they would be the one affected by its failure.<ref name="Bloom2007">{{cite web |url=http://www.nwhn.org/alice_wolfson |title=Alice Wolfson |last=Bloom |first=Amy |website=nwhn.org |date=October 8, 2007 |access-date=June 10, 2025 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071008235916/http://www.nwhn.org/alice_wolfson |url-status=dead |archive-date=October 8, 2007}}</ref> She has stated that the "work and toil put in by her generation" would be undone if Roe v. Wade was ever overturned.<ref name="Ali2022">{{cite news |url=https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/speak-dont-ashamed-activists-fought-roe-urge-younger-generation-keep-f-rcna27153 |title='Speak up. Don't be ashamed': Activists who fought for Roe urge younger generation to keep fighting |last=Ali |first=Safia Samee |publisher=NBCNews.com |date=May 3, 2022 |access-date=June 10, 2025}}</ref>
== Awards and honors ==
* Wolfson was the recipitent of the 2021 Millicent Carey McIntosh Award for Feminism<ref name="Waxman2021">{{cite web |url=https://veteranfeministsofamerica.org/vfa-pioneer-histories-project-alice-wolfson/ |title=Alice Wolfson: "The Women's Movement Gave Me a Voice" |last=Waxman |first=Judith |website=Veteran Feminists of America |date=June 2021 |access-date=June 10, 2025}}</ref>
== See also ==
* Birth control in the United States * Women's liberation movement
== References == {{reflist}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wolfson, Alice}} Category:Year of birth missing (living people) Category:Living people Category:American women lawyers Category:American health activists Category:American lawyers Category:American tax resisters Category:American women's rights activists Category:Barnard College alumni Category:Women's health movement Category:21st-century American women Category:American women human rights activists