Cecile Richards has been president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and the Planned Parenthood Action Fund for 12 years, but this May she’ll step down.
Richards would later experience a bit of deja vu, if only just in the sense of feeling part of a conspiracy, after meeting with Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump at a Trump golf course in New Jersey in February 2017 about federal funding for the nonprofit. In the weeks after President Trump’s election in 2016, Planned Parenthood saw a 900 percent increase in requests for appointments for IUDs from women who wanted to to make sure their birth control would outlast the Trump presidency.
It’s someone who had to decide whether she accepts things the way they are or questions authority, and I chose the latter.
Losing. Any time you’re taking on a fight you’re not sure you can win, it’s a little scary, especially when there are people counting on you. I write in the book about a union campaign Kirk and I worked on in Beaumont, Texas. We lost, and it was crushing. I felt I’d let down all of the nursing home workers we’d been organizing [to fight for fair wages]. It took a long time to get over that. But I still think our cause was just, and it was better to fight and lose than not fight at all. The way I see it, if you win every battle, you probably need to set your sights higher.
I’m really looking forward to this one, and I’m thrilled that Women and Children First is sponsoring this event. They are legendary!
