By HOLLY RAMER, Associated Press
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — Cecile Richards, a national leader for abortion access and girls's rights who led Planned Parenthood for 12 tumultuous years, has died. She was 67.
Richards died Monday at home “surrounded by her family and her ever-faithful dog, Ollie,” her family said in a press release.
“Our hearts are broken today, but no words can do justice to the joy she has brought into our lives,” the family said.
Richards, the daughter of the late Texas Gov. Ann Richards, was diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive type of brain cancer, in 2023, five years later She left Planned Parenthood.
Although Planned Parenthood also offers contraception, cancer screenings and sexually transmitted disease testing at clinics across the country, its status because the nation's leading abortion provider has long been a source of debate. Richards played a distinguished role in warding off criticism during her term as president and beyond.
In 2015, she spent hours on it Answering hostile questions by Republican U.S. House members who later created an investigative panel to analyze Planned Parenthood's abortion and fetal tissue policies. In 2021, she warned that the U.S. Supreme Court's inaction on Texas' restrictive abortion law could mean the top of judicial checks and balances on the difficulty. And after court overthrew Roe v. calf In 2022, she continued to talk out.
“One day our children and grandchildren may ask us, 'When everything was on the line, what did you do?'” she said on the Democratic National Convention in August. “The only acceptable answer is, 'Everything we could.'”
President Joe Biden, who awarded Richards the Presidential Medal of Freedom in November, called her a “leader of the highest character” on Monday.
“Cecile has fearlessly pushed us forward to be the America we say we are,” he said in a press release. “She carried her mother’s torch for justice and championed some of our nation’s most important civil rights causes. She fought for the dignity of workers, defended and promoted women’s reproductive rights and equality, and mobilized our fellow Americans to exercise their right to vote.”
Alexis McGill Johnson, current president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, called Richards an “indomitable force.”
“As we continue to break new ground, we will be able to overcome the challenges we face thanks in large part to the movement Cecile has built over decades,” she said. “I know without a doubt that Cecile would tell us that the best way to honor her memory is to dress – preferably in pink – with her arms bandaged and fight like hell for Planned Parenthood patients across the country .”
In her speech on the Democratic National Convention, Richards described the enjoyment of becoming a grandmother in 2023 and quoted her mother when she called Kamala Harris' presidential campaign a “celebration of women.”
“As my mother, Gov. Ann Richards, would say, 'I hear America singing,'” she said. “When women have the freedom to make their own decisions about their lives and follow our dreams, we are unstoppable.”
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