Former Planned Parenthood president, women's rights activist Cecile Richards has died at 67

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — Cecile Richards, a national leader for abortion access and women’s rights who led Planned Parenthood for 12 tumultuous years, has died. She was 67.

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

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

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 lightning rod for debate. Richards played a prominent role in pushing back against criticism during her tenure as president and beyond.

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.’”

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. “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.”

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 quoted her mother when referring to Kamala Harris' presidential campaign as 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.”