Cécile Richards, former director of Planned Parenthood, dies: NPR

Cécile Richards, a prominent advocate for women’s rights and other progressive causes, died Monday. In a statement, her family confirmed her death, saying she died at home, “surrounded by her family and her ever faithful dog, Ollie.”

“Our hearts are broken today but no words can do justice to the joy she brought to our lives,” the statement said.

Richards was best known for her work leading Planned Parenthood through a particularly difficult period that included threats to its funding and Donald Trump’s first election to the presidency.

During more than a decade at the helm of Planned Parenthood, Richards often called to defend reproductive health organization against attacks from political opponents. She and her movement faced growing challenges after Trump, who ran for president in 2016 promising to overturn the landmark abortion rights ruling. Roe v. Wadewas elected for the first time.

At Women’s March In Washington, the day after Trump’s inauguration in 2017, Richards spoke to thousands of protesters and promised to fight his policies.

“Today we are here to deliver a message: We are not going to leave this alone and we are not going back to it,” Richards told the crowd.

The following year, Richards announced she was leaving Planned Parenthood. After leaving the organization, Richards focused her efforts on leading the Supermajority, a group she co-founded to mobilize women voters.

In the coming years, the Trump administration would take steps aimed at reducing access to abortion, including cutting funding to groups that recommend abortion, such as Planned Parenthood, through an abortion program. ‘abortion. recast of Title family planning program.

During his first term, Trump appointed three conservative justices to the Supreme Court, who in June 2022 would ultimately vote to overturn decades of precedent on abortion rights.

Despite setbacks in the abortion rights movement and a brain cancer diagnosis, Richards embodied a “tireless” determination, said former Texas state Sen. Wendy Davis.

“His belief (was) that you can’t give up before you even start, and that it’s always worth fighting for,” Davis said.

Davis worked closely with Richards during a high-profile battle to defeat an anti-abortion bill in Texas in 2013. Now a senior adviser to Planned Parenthood Texas Votes, the group’s Texas political arm, Davis says Richards still inspires her to keep fighting.

“You want to give in to weariness and give in to just giving up,” Davis said. “When I’m tempted to feel that way, I think of Cécile, and I know a lot of people do.”

Richards herself was inspired by inheritance from his motherThe late Texas Governor Ann Richards, known for her quick wit and down-to-earth attitude.

During an audience Before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in 2015, a lawmaker asked her if she expected the committee “to be easier on you because you’re a woman?”

“Absolutely not,” Richards replied. “That’s not how my mother raised me.”

The hearing arose from the release of secretly recorded videos by the Center for Medical Progress, an anti-abortion group that accused Planned Parenthood of selling fetal body parts. Planned Parenthood said the sting the videos have been edited be deliberately misleading.

Dr. Colleen McNicholas, chief medical officer of Planned Parenthood Great Rivers in the St. Louis area, had known Richards for more than a decade through her advocacy for abortion rights.

“I think she really changed the way the movement engaged publicly; she was a very visible and bold presence,” McNicholas said. “She wasn’t afraid to answer questions, to say the word ‘abortion’.”

Washington Sen. Patty Murray, a Democrat with a long history of defending reproductive rights, credits Richards with instrumental role ensuring that the Affordable Care Act, passed under President Barack Obama, included contraceptive coverage.

Murray says that despite the setbacks the movement has faced in recent years, she sees Richards as an example of continuing the fight.

“I would take what Cécile did in her life and use it as a charge to all of us now: you move forward, you fight for what you believe in, you have the courage to stand up and say what is fair,” Murray said. said. “You accept those setbacks, you learn from them and you move forward, and she always did that.”

In an Instagram post in January 2024, months after her cancer diagnosis, Richards described going through a whirlwind of treatments, spending time with family and focusing on what was most important, including her continued activism.

“After all,” Richards wrote, “as my mother said, ‘Why should your life be all about you?'”

As his health continued to deteriorate, Richards addressed the 2024 Democratic National Convention.

She spoke of joy of becoming a grandmother recently, and the challenges many women have faced since the overthrow of the Roe v. Wade.

“One day our children and grandchildren may ask us, ‘When everything was on the line, what did you do?’ And the only acceptable response is to do everything we can,” Richards said.

In November 2024, President Joe Biden honored Cécile Richards with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in a private ceremony at the White House. In a statement, Biden praised Richards for her “utter courage and conviction” and “an inspiring legacy that endures in her incredible family, the countless lives she improved, and a nation seeking the light of equality, of justice and freedom.”