‘One-in-a-Generation Leader’: Activists Remember Cecile Richards

Fellow movement leaders remember Richards for her humor, passion, and grit. In her final interview from November, Richards instructed everyone to order abortion pills and said she believes, “We can get back to a better place.”

By Kylie Cheung  |  January 21, 2025 | 10:02am
Photos: Getty Images In Depth
‘One-in-a-Generation Leader’: Activists Remember Cecile Richards

On Monday, Cecile Richards’ family shared that the icon of the reproductive rights movement had passed away after being diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer, in 2023. Richards, who served as president of Planned Parenthood from 2006 to 2018, helped steer the reproductive rights movement during a period of heightened anti-abortion extremism that ultimately paved the way for the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022. Since Monday, fellow movement leaders have been sharing their memories of Richards, who they describe as a towering and unrelenting champion for our rights, who so often stood arm-in-arm with them through increasingly difficult fights.

Louise Melling, director of the Ruth Bader Ginsburg Center for Liberty at the ACLU, remembered Richards as “a one-in-a-generation leader who forever altered the trajectory of women’s rights and reproductive freedom in this country,” in a lengthy and heartfelt post. “Every politician knew who she was. Everyone in my not-too-political family also knew. Cecile understood that disruption—of the status quo, of the majority voice, of expectation—was how change is made, no matter how uncomfortable that may be,” Melling wrote. “It’s so fitting that her book was called, Make Trouble.”

“Even after she was diagnosed with a glioblastoma… Cecile couldn’t stop,” Melling continued, pointing to Richards’ powerful work for Abortion in America, an organization sharing the stories of those denied health care under state abortion bans. “As a friend observed, Cecile is like a racehorse, restless for the chance to run.”

Renee Bracey Sherman, founder and executive director of the reproductive justice organization We Testify, shared a series of personal memories with Richards to mark her passing on Monday. She recounted how Richards “always called,” both “when bad shit happened” and “when good shit happened.” “Getting to know her over the dozen or so years was an honor,” Bracey Sherman wrote. “She always made time for a hallway catch-up, even as her ability to speak became a challenge. … She always kept a sparkle in her eye—including the last time we hugged in October. She was truly a genuine person and magnetic leader.” 

Bracey Sherman also thanked Richards for advocating for We Testify, an organization that lifts up the voices of abortion storytellers—particularly people of color—behind the scenes, and for blurbing and supporting Bracey Sherman’s book, Liberating Abortion. “I don’t think I ever told her exactly how much that meant to us given that an agent once told us our book ‘wouldn’t sell because we weren’t Cecile Richards,’” Bracey Sherman wrote.

Nancy Northrup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, called Richards “an indefatigable force in the reproductive rights movement.” She continued, “[Richards] fought with equal parts tenacity and grace, even under the most grueling of circumstances. Working alongside Cecile was a lesson in fortitude and grit I’ll forever cherish. Losing her on Day 1 of an administration that threatens the reproductive health and freedoms she spent her life defending is a pointed reminder that we must carry on the fight, no matter what.”

Feminist author Jessica Valenti fondly remembered Richards as “a consummate troublemaker,” and wrote, “I think often about what she must have sacrificed to do that work—not just the time and energy it took to lead on an issue like abortion, but the danger she put herself in every time she spoke up.”

And Richards’ own former organization, Planned Parenthood, also gave a statement on her passing, calling Richards “the embodiment of ‘Care, no matter what.’” The organization continued, “As the reproductive freedom movement navigates unchartered territory, we know Cecile would tell us the best way to honor her memory is to suit up (in pink!), link arms, and fight like hell for the health and rights of all people.”

A former Planned Parenthood employee who worked with Richards called her “a giant,” writing, “I was so inspired the first time I saw her Congressional testimony: resolute, strong, and refusing to give any credence to baseless attacks against abortion and Planned Parenthood employees. … Because of her, people caught their cancer early, got to make decisions about their families, got help after sexual assault, and got the gender-affirming care they needed. She handled every attack with an inimitable grace and strength and we are a better country for having had the privilege of her leadership.”

In the summer of 2015, Congressional Republicans spearheaded a brutal witch hunt targeting Planned Parenthood over a series of highly doctored videos by an anti-abortion extremist organization; the videos supposedly showed Planned Parenthood doctors “selling baby parts,” AKA donating fetal tissue to research organizations—an entirely legal practice. By November, an anti-abortion extremist invaded a Colorado-based Planned Parenthood clinic and shot and killed three; he called himself a “warrior for the babies,” adding, “You go to a war zone, that’s what happens.” 

Even under such intense pressure, Richards refused to concede any ground to the anti-abortion movement on our fundamental rights, nor on the value of her organization’s mission: providing quality reproductive health care to all, no matter what. Leaders like this are rare—today’s Democratic politicians, who constantly equivocate on when abortion should or shouldn’t be legal, on whether they personally like or dislike abortion, make it especially clear that not too many people as visible and influential as Richards are willing to stick their necks out for our reproductive rights.

Shortly before Richards was compelled to testify before the Republican-controlled House Oversight Committee in September 2015, she spent the day with Jezebel’s Hillary Crosley Coker, lobbying for reproductive rights at the Capitol, holding a rally, and meeting with college-age activists. “I have never done a job where people weren’t pissed off at me,” Richards said. “I grew up in Texas—what can I say? My dad was a civil rights lawyer and defended conscientious objectors during the Vietnam War. My mother was involved in the farm workers movement.” She added, “I just grew up used to being in the center of some social justice movement that not everyone was supporting.”

In an interview with the 19th published shortly before Election Day, Richards spoke candidly about the future of our reproductive rights, as someone who’d helped helm the movement for years. “In all honesty, I fear it will take us a long time to restore the rights we once had,” she said. “For people who face challenges based on race, geography, income, and more, these inequities are deep-seated, intersectional and much more difficult to eradicate. We need to be ready for a multi-year fight.”

Richards impressed that message on all of us, over and over, that the fight for our rights requires us to be in this for the long haul, no matter how hopeless we may feel some days. In her family’s statement on Richards’ passing, they asked her supporters to “remember something she said a lot over the last year: 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?’ And the only acceptable answer is: ‘Everything we could.’”

Richards’ passing on the same day as the inauguration of Donald Trump was incredibly bleak. But it’s also a reminder that her life’s work is now our work. In what appears to be Richards’ final interview, from November but published on Monday in the Texas Observer, Richards, again, called on us to think of our loved ones as we navigate these coming days and years of uncertainty, and gave some highly specific, very helpful advice: “Order abortion pills, and order them for your family and friends.” She didn’t sugarcoat the state of the world, but she did conclude with an ultimately optimistic perspective: “I do believe we can get back to a better place.”

 
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