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Cecile Richards led Planned Parenthood from 2006 to 2018, making her the organization’s longest-serving president.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
Richards is survived by her husband, Kirk Adams, a health care union leader, and their three children.
