Cecile Richards speaks at the Women’s March in Austin, Texas, in 2021.Stephen Spillman/AP
Cecile Richards, former president of Planned Parenthood and a staunch advocate for reproductive rights, died Monday, according to a statement from her family. Since 2023, she battled glioblastoma, a form of terminal brain cancer. She was 67.
“This morning our beloved Cecile passed away at home, surrounded by her family and her ever-loyal dog, Ollie,” her family—husband Kirk and kids Lily, Hannah, and Daniel—wrote. “Our hearts are broken today but no words can do justice to the joy she brought to our lives.”
Richards led Planned Parenthood for a dozen turbulent years during which access to reproductive health care was being increasingly undermined and her organization, the largest provider of such care in the country, was targeted by Republicans. She transformed the organization into a political powerhouse, launching its first-ever primary endorsement for a political candidate in 2016, when Planned Parenthood backed Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination.
“America has had few greater advocates for women and reproductive health than Cecile Richards,” Clinton said on Monday. “Her legacy will be the countless lives she touched and the generations of women she inspired to follow in her footsteps.”
Upon announcing her departure from Planned Parenthood in 2018, Richards called the job “the honor of my lifetime.” She continued advocating for abortion access, most recently by launching a new initiative, an abortion storytelling platform called Abortion in America, meant to highlight stories about the fallout of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision.
Even after her cancer diagnosis, Richards continued making appearances and speaking publicly in support of abortion rights, including at the Democratic National Convention in August in support of Kamala Harris.
In a 2018 interview with Mother Jones, upon the publication of her memoir Make Trouble: Standing Up, Speaking Out, and Finding the Courage to Lead, Richards said:
I think one of the myths in the world is that somehow being an activist or a troublemaker is burdensome, or you’re always depressed. People would also walk up to me and say, “How are you doing?” Actually, I feel like being an organizer and an activist gives you such a chance to make a difference in the world. It’s really an incredible life, and so I hope that what this book also gives people is a sense of the joy that you can get from making a little bit of difference in the world and the amazing people you meet along the way.
“If you’d like to celebrate Cecile today,” her family said in the statement announcing her passing, “we invite you to put on some New Orleans jazz, gather with friends and family over a good meal, and remember something she said a lot 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 is: ‘Everything we could.’”