Cecile Richards Passed Away!

Cecile Richards.

Planned Parenthood's most recognized figure passed away. The former president of the women's health and reproductive rights organization had passed away from glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer.

Cecile Richards was an American activist who served as the president of both the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and its affiliated Planned Parenthood Action Fund from 2006 to 2018. In 2010, Richards was elected to the Ford Foundation board of trustees. In spring 2019, Richards co-founded Supermajority, a women's political action group.

Richards was born in Waco, Texas, on July 15, 1957, the daughter of Ann Richards (née Willis), an American politician and activist who served as governor of Texas from 1991 to 1995. Her father, David Richards, practiced law, and built a practice dealing with civil-rights plaintiffs, newspapers, and labor unions. He also won several landmark cases, including a voting-rights lawsuit that went to the Supreme Court. Cecile Richards was raised in Dallas and Austin, Texas. She initially went to public school, but, in ninth grade, she was disciplined for protesting the Vietnam War, after she wore a black armband. She then attended the progressive St. Stephen's Episcopal School in Austin for the remainder of high school.

Richards graduated with a bachelor's degree in history from Brown University (1980).

Richards was married to Kirk Adams, a labor organizer with the Service Employees International Union, with whom she had three children: Lily, Hannah and Daniel. Their eldest, Lily Adams, served as press secretary for Tim Kaine, later as an advisor of communications for Hillary Clinton's Democratic presidential campaign, and as communications director for Kamala Harris's presidential campaign.

Richards died Monday at home in New York “surrounded by family and her ever-loyal dog, Ollie,” her family said in a statement.

Richards, the daughter of the late Texas Gov. Ann Richards, was diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer, in 2023, five years after she left Planned Parenthood.

Though Planned Parenthood also provides birth control, cancer screenings and testing for sexually transmitted diseases at clinics nationwide, its status as the nation’s leading abortion provider has long made it a target of social conservatives. Under Richards’ leadership, the organization gained in membership, donor support and political clout, and she played a prominent role in pushing back against critics.

In 2015, she spent hours answering hostile questions from Republican U.S. House members who later created an investigative panel to probe 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 signal the end of judicial checks and balances on the issue. And after the court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, she continued to speak out.

“One day, our children and grandchildren may ask us, ‘When it was all on the line, what did you do?’” she said at the Democratic National Convention in August. “The only acceptable answer is, ‘Everything we could.’”

Richards earned a bachelor of arts degree in history from Brown University, where she unfurled a banner from a second floor window during her 1980 graduation ceremony to protest the school’s investments in South Africa.

“One of the more popular buttons of the day was ‘Question Authority,’ and I feel like we did that every single day, and it absolutely set me on my path,” she said in a 2017 address to graduates. “Brown instilled in me the belief that any one of us can change the world and that, in fact, it’s sort of what is expected of us.”

After college, she worked as an organizer for low-wage workers in several states before returning to Texas to help with her mother’s 1990 gubernatorial campaign. In 2004, she was a founder of America Votes, and before joining Planned Parenthood, served as deputy chief of staff for House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi.

Former president Joe Biden gave Richards the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Richards with her husband and former first lady Dr. Jill Biden.

“It was my privilege to work directly with Cecile for many years and to I have a front-row seat to her sharp intellect, strategic thinking and relentless effectiveness,” Pelosi said in a statement Monday. “As she ascended to other leadership roles, we never stopped working together to defend the rights of women and working families.”

Outgoing President Joe Biden, who awarded Richards the Presidential Medal of Freedom in November, on Monday called her a “leader of utmost character.”

“Cecile fearlessly led us forward to be the America we say we are,” he said in a statement issued about an hour before Donald Trump was sworn in as president. “Carrying her mom’s torch for justice, she championed some of our Nation’s most important civil rights causes. She fought for the dignity of workers, defended and advanced women’s reproductive rights and equality, and mobilized our fellow Americans to exercise their power to vote.”

After leaving Planned Parenthood, Richards served as co-chair of American Bridge, which supports liberal causes and conducts opposition research on Republicans. Last fall, she launched a project that used social media to emphasize personal stories about the impact of abortion bans and restrictions.

Alexis McGill Johnson, current president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, called Richards an “indomitable force.”

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

In her Democratic convention speech, Richards described the joy of becoming a grandmother in 2023 and 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 are free to make their own decisions about their lives and to follow our dreams, we are unstoppable.