Former Planned Parenthood President Dies After Battling Brain Cancer

Former President of Planned Parenthood Cecile Richards speaks on stage during the third day of the Democratic National Convention at the United Center in Chicago on Aug. 21, 2024. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Cecile Richards, former president of Planned Parenthood and a prominent figure in the pro-abortion movement, has died. She was 67.

Richards’s family announced her death on Jan. 20, stating that she “passed away at home, surrounded by her family and her ever-loyal dog, Ollie.”

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

Richards, daughter of former Texas Gov. Ann Richards, had revealed almost a year ago in an interview with New York Magazine that she was battling glioblastoma, an aggressive and incurable form of brain cancer for which the median survival time is 15 months. Diagnosed in mid-2023, she had vowed to continue her activism despite the illness.

Richards was president of Planned Parenthood from 2006 to 2018, during which the organization oversaw more than 4.2 million abortions, as outlined in its annual reports.

Under Richards’s leadership, Planned Parenthood expanded substantially, growing its base to more than 13 million donors and volunteers by the time of her departure. She also strengthened her organization’s ties to the Democratic Party, including briefly serving as an adviser to Hillary Clinton’s unsuccessful presidential campaign.

One of the most challenging moments of Richards’s tenure came in 2015, when a series of undercover videos allegedly showed Planned Parenthood officials talking about—in graphic detail—preserving aborted fetal organs and selling them for research.

The video footage triggered national outrage and drew congressional scrutiny, prompting Republican lawmakers to call for the organization to be stripped of its federal funding, which at the time amounted to $500 million.

In response to the controversy, Richards apologized for the tone that Planned Parenthood officials and doctors used when discussing the aborted fetuses. However, she firmly denied any wrongdoing, insisting that the videos were edited to misrepresent the organization’s practices.

“We are heartbroken to lose the indomitable force that is our former president, Cecile Richards,” Planned Parenthood stated on Jan. 20 on its official X account. “In her 12 devoted years of service to our org, she brought us to new heights in our health care, education, and advocacy work.”

Planned Parenthood faced significant setbacks when the landmark June 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision to overturn Roe v. Wade ended decades of federal protections for abortion access and returned the issue to individual states.

President Donald Trump, who returned to the White House on Jan. 20 for a second term, also overhauled the federally funded Title X family planning program during his first term in office, cutting off funds to organizations such as Planned Parenthood that provided abortion referrals.

In 2018, a year into Trump’s first term, Richards stepped down as president of Planned Parenthood and focused her efforts on leading Supermajority, a group she co-founded with Black Lives Matter activist Alicia Garza to mobilize women’s votes.

Just months before her death, Richards was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by then-outgoing President Joe Biden in a private ceremony at the White House.

“Through her work to lift up the dignity of workers, defend and advance women’s reproductive rights and equality, and mobilize Americans to exercise their power to vote, she has carved an inspiring legacy,” Biden wrote on Nov. 20, 2024, in a post on X.

Richards is survived by her husband, Kirk Adams, a health care union leader, and their three children.