Planned Parenthood's Cecile Richards Is a Women's Health Advocate, Not a Monster

By Hillary Crosley Coker  |  August 13, 2015 | 5:20pm
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In our second episode of This Broad’s Life, we followed Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards around Washington, D.C. in early July—just weeks before the organization fell under attack from the Center for Medical Progress, an anti-abortion group, and subsequently from Republicans all over the country.

In the last few weeks, the Center for Medical Progress has released a number of heavily edited videos alleging that Planned Parenthood misuses and sells “fetal tissue” from abortions performed in their clinics. In response, Richards has publicly stated that the allegations are untrue. Selling tissue is illegal, she noted, and the organization abides by the law when donating to research facilities.

But that hasn’t stopped Republicans from riding this anti-abortion wave through state governments in Alabama, Texas, Georgia, Indiana and Ohio, as well as the Senate, in an effort to defund Planned Parenthood yet again.

“I have never done a job where people weren’t pissed off at me,” Richards told Jezebel. “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.”

And, as we followed Richards from a rally on Capital Hill to lobbying in the halls of the Senate building, it was clear that she and her college-age supporters were doing exactly what their mission statement sets out to: making a path for safe, affordable and accessible women’s healthcare in America. Who doesn’t want that?

Enjoy this episode of This Broad’s Life and watch our first featuring Janet Mock, host of MSNBC’s So Popular! and trans activist.

Contact the author at [email protected].

 
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