Cecile Richards

Cecile Richards was a pioneering advocate for reproductive health and Planned Parenthood’s president from 2006 to 2018. During the course of her leadership, Richards defended the organization from unwavering attacks by antiabortion extremists, including a sting operation attempting to frame Planned Parenthood for profiting off of fetal tissue sales. Her mother, the late Ann Richards, was a progressive Democratic governor of Texas in the 1990s. Richards passed away on Jan. 20, 2025 of brain cancer, a true loss of a strong voice of reason and advocacy in the feminist movement for reproductive rights.

Pressure Mounts for Companies to Stand Against Texas’ Near-Total Abortion Ban: ‘Time to Get on Board,’ Says Cecile Richards

PUBLISHED 9/30/2021 by
Cecile Richards: Business World Silence After Texas Abortion Ban Is “Unthinkable. ... It’s Time to Get on Board”

Texas’s S.B. 8. has laid bare the precarious nature of abortion rights. Even still, it’s hard not to notice a relative silence from corporate America. Cecile Ricards, former president of Planned Parenthood from 2006 to 2018 and daughter of former Texas Gov. Ann Richards, calls this silence “unthinkable.” 

“This was the moment for corporations, businesses and employers, to stand up on behalf off the people that they employ, the people that they sell products to, and the places where they do business, on an issue like abortion rights, which has been a constitutional right in this country for [nearly] 50 years,” Richards told Ms. “Now in one state, Texas, essentially, that constitutional right effectively no longer exists.”

The Plan Moms Have Been Waiting For

PUBLISHED 6/21/2021 by

President Biden is doing what no other president has: recognizing what it takes for true equal participation in the workforce. He is investing in 3- and 4-year-old pre-K, making child care accessible and affordable, and ensuring we can take paid time off for family illness without losing our jobs. Now that’s a real jobs plan.

It’s time that Republicans in Congress get on board and join the 21st century. Women and families are counting on this help. Let’s get it done.

The Other 99 Percent

PUBLISHED 11/17/2011 by

There’s not a lot we agree on in this country. And yet, there is one topic around which there is practically universal agreement: the right of women to access birth control. That’s right–99 percent of women in the U.S. who have been sexually active have used birth control. It’s used by women of every demographic, […]