Kushner was born on March 27, 1939, to a Jewish family.[1] Her parents were Selma C. Rosen, an art collector who worked closely with the Baltimore Museum of Art, and Israel Rosen. She had one brother, Richard.[2] She attended Brandeis UniversityinBoston, Massachusetts, where she received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1960. The next year, she received a masters of education from Boston University.[1] As a college student, she travelled to Baltimore, Maryland, to receive an illegal abortion.[3]
ADemocrat, Kushner was elected to the Rhode Island House of Representatives in 1983, as the representative for the 4th district.[1] The following year, she introduced a bill that would have banned discrimination against gays and lesbians, although it failed to pass the legislature.[4] She sponsored a gun control bill that would have banned "Saturday night specials" in 1989, when she was deputy majority leader.[5] In 1993, she led a campaign to pass a bill in the state house that would have made abortion legal. It passed the lower chamber by a vote of 51–42 but failed to pass the state senate.[6]
In 1994, Kushner decided not to run for re-election to her state legislature seat in order to join the United States Senate race in Rhode Island.[7][8] She received the Democratic party's nomination after running unopposed in the primary. In the general, she challenged Republican incumbent John Chafee.[7] Due to her opponent's popularity, she was considered unlikely to win and ultimately lost the election, receiving 36% of the vote to his 64%.[9][10]
In 2019, Kushner spoke before the state's House Judiciary committee hearing on various abortion bills to share her experiences of receiving an abortion in 1960.[3] She was appointed to the state's Democratic Senatorial District Committee in 2021, to choose the candidate who received the party's endorsement for the 3rd district in the 2022 general elections.[11]
