CONCORD, N.H. — Cecile Richards, a national leader for abortion access and women's rights who led Planned Parenthood for 12 tumultuous years, has died. She was 67.
Richards died Monday at home in New York ''surrounded by family and her ever-loyal dog, Ollie,'' her family said in a statement.
''Our hearts are broken today but no words can do justice to the joy she brought to our lives,'' the family said.
Richards, the daughter of the late Texas Gov. Ann Richards, was diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer, in 2023, five years after she left Planned Parenthood.
Though Planned Parenthood also provides birth control, cancer screenings and testing for sexually transmitted diseases at clinics nationwide, its status as the nation's leading abortion provider has long made it a target of social conservatives. Under Richards' leadership, the organization gained in membership, donor support and political clout, and she played a prominent role in pushing back against critics.
In 2015, she spent hours answering hostile questions from Republican U.S. House members who later created an investigative panel to probe Planned Parenthood's abortion and fetal-tissue policies. In 2021, she warned that the U.S. Supreme Court's inaction on Texas' restrictive abortion law could signal the end of judicial checks and balances on the issue. And after the court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, she continued to speak out.
''One day, our children and grandchildren may ask us, ‘When it was all on the line, what did you do?''' she said at the Democratic National Convention in August. ''The only acceptable answer is, ‘Everything we could.'''
Born on July 15, 1957, in Waco, Texas, Richards earned a bachelor of arts degree in history from Brown University, where she unfurled a banner from a second floor window during her 1980 graduation ceremony to protest the school's investments in South Africa.