Remembering Cecile Richards

January 20, 2025

It seems oddly appropriate that Cecile Richards, the former head of Planned Parenthood, daughter of the late Governor Ann Richards of Texas and longtime advocate for reproductive rights for women everywhere, should die on a day that will likely mark the death of a number of policies that I and so many others hold dear. Today, I am choosing to focus on the work Cecile Richards did as a distraction from the travesty underway in Washington, DC.

While I didn’t know Cecile Richards personally, I had the opportunity to both read her words and hear her speak. She was smart and passionate and committed, all attributes woefully lacking in today’s events. On some level I think she might have liked knowing that for at least some people, her passing took attention away from the petulant old man moving back into the White House and instead placed focus on rights that have been lost, rights that must be regained, rights that I personally believe in and for which I have fought and will continue to fight.

Cecile Richards, like her mother before her, wasn’t afraid to piss people off in the name of justice and equality. She dedicated herself to a cause that, if the midterm elections of 2022 are to be believed, the majority of Americans consider just and right and essential for the health of women in America. She was threatened, but still she persevered. In the words that are often applied to Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, “Nevertheless, she persisted.” Cecile Richards didn’t fight alone: she had an army of women behind and beside her, and she taught women how to fight for reproductive autonomy. She led a controversial organization – because, sadly, providing women of all ages and ethnicities and income levels with access to reproductive health care is considered by many to be fraught with controversy – with grace and dignity and steely reserve. She did it calmly but forcefully, often with a smile, but anyone mistaking that smile for a sign of complacency or acquiescence would soon learn that they were sorely mistaken. Cecile Richards did not give up. And because she kept going – because she persisted – there are hundreds of thousands of women, saddened by her death and motivated by the state of affairs taking root on this very day, who will continue to fight for reproductive freedom.

As a woman, I’m grateful for the work that Cecile Richards and her colleagues have done, and I’m grateful for the women who will take up her mantle and carry her work forward. And it is work that must be carried forward. The fight that is Cecile Richards’ bequest to us is just one of many fights that women will be forced to undertake in the next four years. For Cecile Richards, and for the millions of women who benefited from her efforts and the millions of women for whom we can’t let that work be halted, I pledge here and now to do what I can to ensure that the fight she led doesn’t end until it is won.

Here’s to you, Cecile Richards, with gratitude for your guts and your fortitude and your resolve. May they be remembered, emulated, and celebrated.