Nora W. Coffey

Nora W. Coffey is a women's health advocate, activist, and educator. She founded the Hysterectomy Educational Resources and Services (HERS) Foundation in 1982. Los Angeles Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, Boston Globe, New York Magazine, Newsweek, USA Today, Ms. Magazine, and others.

She has testified at U.S. Food and Drug Administration hearings and works with the FDA to ensure the reporting of adverse events of uterine artery embolization.

Coffey founded the Hysterectomy Educational Resources and Services (HERS) Foundation in 1982. The foundation is the only independent, nonprofit organization solely dedicated to the alternatives to, and the aftermath of hysterectomy.

Rick Schweikert's "on becoming," which had its Off-Broadway debut in 2004, was directed by Coffey. It was subsequently seen in 23 cities and produced in Washington, D.C., in 2005. It received praise from Barbara Seaman, health advocate, and author of The Greatest Experiment Ever Performed on Women: Exploding the Estrogen Myth.

Coffey is working toward a sustainable legal remedy to end hysterectomy without the information requisite to informed consent.

Coffey and Schweikert’s book, The H Word, about the physical, political, economic, and social environment surrounding hysterectomy, was published in 2009.

Coffey was honored by the organization Women's Way of Philadelphia at their 32nd Annual Powerful Voice Awards on May 6, 2009.