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Cecile Richards, 67, Longtime Former President of Planned Parenthood, Dies of Brain Cancer

HeadlineJan 21, 2025

Cecile Richards, former president of Planned Parenthood and fierce defender of reproductive rights, has died at 67 after a battle with brain cancer. Richards was a labor and voting organizer before leading Planned Parenthood from 2006 to 2018, helping fend off Republican attacks on abortion in red states. In November of last year, Richards was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Joe Biden. She was the daughter of pioneering Texas Democratic Governor Ann Richards. Cecile Richards spoke on Democracy Now! many times, including in July of 2018, after then-President Trump nominated Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court as part of the far-right plan to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Cecile Richards: “Roe v. Wade didn’t create the idea of abortion. Abortion existed before it was legal. It was simply unsafe, and young, healthy women died routinely in emergency rooms across this country. I still meet doctors who can tell me they remember doing their residencies and their rotations, seeing women die. So, the point is now, I think, what the president is saying is we’re going to actually now say that women may be safe in some states, but in a lot of states they won’t be. My home state of Texas, where they actually have basically tried to outlaw abortion almost completely, we’re going to go back to a day in which women had to go across the border or take things into their own hands. It’s a very scary time for women.”

That was Cecile Richards speaking in 2018. She just died at the age of 67. Click here to see our interviews with Cecile Richards over the years.

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