Death of Cécile Richards, longtime president of Planned Parenthood

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Cécile Richards, a lifelong women’s rights activist who led Planned Parenthood for 12 years, has died at the age of 67 from brain cancer, her family announced in a statement Monday morning. Richards, the eldest daughter of former Texas Governor Ann Richards, has carved her own path as an activist and political force for women in Texas and the United States.

Richards helped transform Planned Parenthood into a political powerhouse as well as the nation’s leading provider of reproductive and sexual health care. She led the organization through a tumultuous period marked by attacks from Republicans, state efforts to defund clinics and the first election of President Donald J. Trump. After leaving the organization in 2018, she remained active in Democratic politics and the fight for reproductive rights until her death.

Even after being diagnosed with glioblastoma, an incurable brain cancer, in mid-2023, Richards continued to lobby, helping to amplify the stories of women affected by the abortion ban and working on a chatbot. information on abortion. She first shared her diagnosis with The Cut in January 2024.

In August, she spoke at the Democratic National Convention on behalf of Vice President Kamala Harris, declaring that “when women are free to make their own decisions about their lives and achieve their dreams, we are unstoppable.” When Trump defeated Harris in November, Richards wrote on social media: “Those of us who have been in this business for a while have experienced the truism that when you fight for justice, you lose, you lose , you lose – and then you win. . This is especially true when it comes to the fight for reproductive freedom.

Richards died at his home Monday, just hours before Trump was inaugurated for his second term. She was at home with her family and her dog, Ollie, according to a statement from her husband and three children.

“We invite you to listen to New Orleans jazz, gather with friends and family over a great meal, and remember something she has often said over the last year: ‘ It’s not hard to imagine future generations one day asking: ‘When there was so much at stake for our country, what did you do? The only acceptable answer was: everything we could?’ writes the family.

Richards was born in Waco in 1957, the eldest daughter of David, a civil rights lawyer, and Ann, then a housewife who became increasingly involved in Democratic politics. In Dallas, Austin and Washington, D.C., Richards was raised fighting for social justice, wearing a black armband to school to protest the Vietnam War.

At the age of 16, Richards joined her mother in campaigning for Sarah Weddington, the attorney who argued Roe v. Wade, in her campaign for the Texas Legislature. She attended Brown University, where she “majored in history but minored in agitation,” as she writes in her book, and interned for an organization implementing the recently passed Title IX. She did not march at her university graduation to unfurl a “Free South Africa” ​​banner calling on Brown to divest his financial holdings in apartheid-era South Africa, which the university did later.

After graduating, she began working as a union organizer in the South, where she met her husband, Kirk Adams. At age 30, she returned to Texas to help her mother campaign to become the first female governor of Texas in modern times.

After George W. Bush defeated Governor Richards for a second term, Cécile became involved in grassroots organizing in Texas, beginning by challenging the continued conservative takeover of school boards and curriculum. She founded the Texas Freedom Alliance, which organized Texans around public education and religious freedom, and the Texas Faith Network, a group of religious leaders speaking out about the conservative takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention. Eventually, the groups joined to become the Texas Freedom Network.

Richards later worked for then-Democratic whip Nancy Pelosi and founded America Votes, a coalition of progressive grassroots organizations that register, educate and turn out voters. That’s where she was working when she got a call to interview to run Planned Parenthood in 2006.

Richards later described her work at Planned Parenthood as a “natural extension” of the labor organizing work in which she got her start.

“The same people I recruited from hotels in New Orleans, concierges in Los Angeles, or nursing home workers in East Texas, are also the ones who rely on Planned Parenthood,” he said. she told Brown’s alumni magazine in 2018. “People come to us for reproductive health care, but they need a lot of other things. They need a living wage. They need affordable child care. If they’re immigrants, they need our support, that’s what’s exciting about the organization to me.

When Richards took over the organization, it was the largest provider of reproductive health care in the country. But she remembered Jill June, the director of Planned Parenthood in Iowa, telling her that the organization’s real challenge lay in the political arena.

“But we continue to lose ground…and we can’t count on another organization to fix things for us,” Richards recalled June telling him. “We must return to the roots of our movement. »

Over the course of 12 years, Richards helped transform Planned Parenthood into one of the most popular political institutions in the country, increasing the donor and volunteer base from three million to 11 million. She raised more money than at any time in the organization’s history and revitalized the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, the organization’s political advocacy arm.

She ushered in an era of unity among the federation’s 49 affiliates, helping to create a single website for patients seeking services across the country.

But Richards’ 12 years with Planned Parenthood also included some of the organization’s most difficult times, as it battled growing attacks from conservative anti-abortion groups. Richards’ home state of Texas led the way in “defunding” Planned Parenthood, removing clinics affiliated with state-funded programs for contraception, breast and cervical cancer screenings. the uterus and HIV prevention.

Matters came to a head in 2015, when an anti-abortion group secretly recorded and released videos appearing to show Planned Parenthood employees in California discussing the illegal sale of fetal remains. While apologizing for the employee’s tone, Richards vehemently denied that Planned Parenthood ever profited from the sale of fetal remains. In a contentious, hours-long congressional hearing led by Rep. Jason Chaffetz, a Utah Republican, Richards was questioned about Planned Parenthood’s spending, its strategy and the services it provides. Congressional Republicans have focused on the group’s abortion services, which are not eligible for federal funding.

This investigation, as well as subsequent congressional and state investigations, found no evidence that Planned Parenthood ever profited from the sale of fetal remains. But in many ways, the damage was done. Texas began a years-long effort to remove Planned Parenthood from the Medicaid program, which continues today, and other states have followed suit.

Richards left Planned Parenthood in 2018, but remained active in Democratic politics, and particularly in the fight for reproductive health care. She helped found Supermajority, a group working to bring more women into Democratic politics, a storytelling collective called Abortion in America, and served as co-chair of American Bridge, a political action committee and research group the opposition dedicated to “holding Republicans accountable.”

She also helped launch Charley, an abortion chatbot that helps people living in states with abortion bans access information about medication abortion. In November 2024, Richards received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Joe Biden.

Richards is survived by her husband, Kirk Adams, a union organizer, and her three children, Lily, Hannah and Daniel.

Planned Parenthood President and CEO Alexis McGill Johnson mourned the loss of a “giant in the fight.”

“As we continue to navigate uncharted territory, we will be able to meet the challenges we face in large part because of the movement that Cécile has built over decades,” McGill Johnson said in a statement. “I know, without a doubt, that Cécile would tell us that the best way to honor her memory is to dress up – preferably in pink – and fight like hell for Planned Parenthood patients across the country. “

Disclosure: Planned Parenthood and Texas Freedom Network have financially supported The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial support plays no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list here.