Photo credit: Lorie Shaull

Primarily known as the president of Planned Parenthood and champion of reproductive rights, Cecile Richards was a feminist activist on more than one front. She brought her A-game to intersectionality in several social justice movements and political arenas. She deserves all the accolades and recognition, the most recent of which was the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Joe Biden at the White House last November. Since the demise of Roe v. Wade in 2022 and the return of an avowed fascist to the White House, her death on January 20, 2025 at age sixty-seven from brain cancer hit us that much harder. Our hearts go out to her loved ones. A few of our authors pay tribute to her and her work.

Rosemarie Day, author of Marching Toward Coverage: How Women Can Lead the Fight for Universal Healthcare, paid her respects on Instagram:

Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood from 2006-2018, and a transformative figure in reproductive health in America, died of brain cancer on January 20. Though passionate about abortion rights—she was working on projects to promote abortion access till the time of her death—she was hardly a single-issue actor.

Her first job out of college was in the labor movement, organizing hotel workers, and throughout her career, she was always aware that reproductive health services were essential, but only one part of a package of things working people needed for a dignified life.  As she once said in a speech, “The same folks I organized in hotels in New Orleans, or janitors in Los Angeles, or nursing home workers in East Texas, they’re the folks that rely on Planned Parenthood, too. People come to us for reproductive health care, but they need a lot of other things. They need a living wage. They need childcare that’s affordable. If they’re immigrants, they need us to stand with them.”

One of her greatest achievements at Planned Parenthood was to bring the organization forcefully into the political arena. In response to the growing attacks on the organization by Republican administrations, particularly during the presidency of George W. Bush, she established the legal arrangements that allowed staff and supporters to engage in electoral work under the aegis of Planned Parenthood. In 2008 and 2012, thousands affiliated with the organization worked on behalf of Barack Obama’s successful presidential campaigns. Immediately after leaving Planned Parenthood, she turned her energy to working on voting rights.

Though a media super star, Cecile Richards was widely known as a down-to-earth, gracious individual. I had the good fortune to meet her several times and treasure my memory of our encounters. The contrast between Cecile’s life work and commitments and those of the person inaugurated, the same day of her death, as the president of the United States could not be more enormous. My despair about the future of our country under this new regime is tempered somewhat when I remind myself of the difference someone like Cecile could make. May her memory be a blessing.
—Carole Joffe, After Dobbs: How the Supreme Court Ended Roe but Not Abortion

Cecile Richards lived in complicated times, particularly for an abortion advocate. Throughout her career, there was the ever-present drumbeat of Roe v. Wade’s coming demise. Meanwhile, forces ranging from restrictive laws to poverty and racism dictated that, for too many Americans, the “right” to choose abortion was increasingly hollow. This reality spurred an ongoing reckoning over the mission of the pro-choice movement and of Planned Parenthood’s role within it. Abortion medication began changing the way Americans got abortions, which in turn raised questions about Planned Parenthood’s brick and mortar business model. This work was not for the faint of heart.

Through it all, Cecile brought her prodigious power and skill to the task of making things better. And she did. I suspect she was talking to herself, as much as to us, as she worked from her sickbed on her most recent projects: Charley, an abortion finder chatbot; and Abortion in America, a media project using abortion stories to fuel activism.

It’s not hard to imagine future generations one day asking: ‘When there was so much at stake for our country, what did you do?’ The only acceptable answer is: ‘Everything we could.’

As we face down the chaos of our times, her memory is for blessing: May we be like Cecile Richards, strong and resolute.
—Michelle Oberman, Her Body, Our Laws: On the Front Lines of the Abortion War from El Salvador to Oklahoma 

Rest in peace, Cecile Richards.