press@supermajority.com
Cecile Richards, the former president of Planned Parenthood has died at 67.
Cecile Richards, the former president of Planned Parenthood—and daughter of Texas’s last Democrat governor, Ann Richards—who became the face of the modern abortion rights movement has died at 67. A powerful political fundraiser who exerted tremendous power in national and state Democratic Party politics, Richards was diagnosed in 2023 with glioblastoma—an especially aggressive form of brain cancer. She succumbed to the disease on January 20, 2025—the day of President-elect Donald J. Trump’s inauguration as the 47th President of the United States.
During her twelve-year tenure as the leader of Planned Parenthood, the organization executed nearly four million abortions, ending the lives of unborn children. Richards stepped down as president of the abortion rights organization in 2018 after taking over its reins in 2006, moving on to found the Supermajority PAC, which aimed to radicalize women voters in the U.S. against the Republican Party and President Trump.
While the group saw some early success with suburban women in the 2018 and 2020 elections, Richard’s deteriorating health largely sidelined the group in 2024. Post-election data suggests President Trump saw a significant recovery in support among women in his landslide election victory last November despite attempts by Planned Parenthood and the Democratic Party to make abortion a key election issue.
In the wake of Richards’s tenure at Planned Parenthood, the radical abortion rights group saw several significant setbacks, including President Trump’s historic Supreme Courtappointments. The political defeats for Planned Parenthood culminated on June 24, 2022—under President Joe Biden—when the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturned both Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey—the two prior decisions which had enabled nationwide abortions.
