Cecile Richards, a former president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America and one of the country’s most well-known defenders of abortion rights, died on Monday. She was 67.
Ms. Richards was diagnosed in 2023 with glioblastoma, a type of brain tumor. She died at home, her family said in a statement. A former political organizer, Ms. Richards was a daughter of former Gov. Ann Richards of Texas.
Ms. Richards was the president of Planned Parenthood from 2006 to 2018, overseeing the country’s largest provider of reproductive health care and sex education during a period in which the care it offered was most under attack — under President George W. Bush and again under President Donald J. Trump. She helped fend off an onslaught of attempts by Republican-controlled state legislatures to pass laws to restrict access or cut funding.
“If I have one regret from my time leading Planned Parenthood, it is that we believed that providing vital health care, with public opinion on our side, would be enough to overcome the political onslaught,” Ms. Richards wrote in an essay in The New York Times in 2022. “I underestimated the callousness of the Republican Party and its willingness to trade off the rights of women for political expediency.”
Her final project was called Abortion in America, and it was dedicated to using TikTok and Instagram to push out stories of abortion beyond traditional media.
“I’ve been really fortunate in my life to always be able to do work that had meaning for me and meaning for the people I care for,” she said in an interview with The Times last year. “Luck is a loaded word, but I feel really lucky.”
She wore a stack of friendship bracelets, one of which read: “Keep going.”
A full obituary will appear later.
Jessica Testa contributed reporting.
