@ppaction / ppaction.tumblr.com
NEW: The Supreme Court just allowed an unnecessary, harmful Kentucky abortion restriction to take effect. This blow to abortion access comes months before the court prepares to hear its next big abortion case in March.
With a judiciary greenlighting anti-abortion politicians’ harmful agendas, the fight to protect abortion access is happening on all fronts. Our freedoms are on the line, and we’ll never stop fighting to ensure every person can access the health care they deserve — no matter what.
The Trump-Pence administration has confirmed more than 150 judges to lifetime seats — that’s faster than any modern administration. One hundred fifty, you read that right. These judges could rule on cases that affect our health, rights, and communities for generations to come. And one of the latest nominees who’s one of the most hostile toward our reproductive rights yet? Sarah Pitlyk.
Sarah Pitlyk is a judicial nominee to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri who’s spent her career trying to roll back our sexual and reproductive health and rights.
Pitlyk is well-known in anti-abortion circles for litigating cases directly opposing abortion rights. She defended Iowa’s unconstitutional 6-week abortion ban and has fought against a local St. Louis ordinance that barred discrimination based on “reproductive health decisions,” such as having an abortion or using birth control.
She’s even directed her anti-abortion ideology and extremism against Planned Parenthood. She defended David Daleiden — an anti-abortion operative who advanced the 2015 video smear campaign against Planned Parenthood. (By the way, those fake, harmful videos have since been debunked)! Pitlyk has also backed the Trump administration’s gag rule, which forced Planned Parenthood out of the Title X program and is now jeopardizing care for millions of people across the country.
And while Pitlyk has made clear she’s against abortion, she’s also fought against birth control access and has gone on the record against alternative reproductive options, such as surrogacy and in vitro fertilization, that an increasing number of people use when facing challenges to getting pregnant.
As a lifetime appointee to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, Pitlyk can help shape the law. We’ve already seen hundreds of anti-abortion and anti-reproductive healthcare bills introduced in state legislatures, and some signed into law by governors. Simultaneously, Trump and the Senate Majority are packing our courts with anti-abortion and anti-reproductive healthcare judges. Think this is a coincidence?
Unfortunately not. Case in point: This year, abortion access could have been decimated in Missouri due to relentless attacks on abortion access. After Missouri Gov. Mike Parson signed an eight-week abortion ban into law, Planned Parenthood challenged the law in court and now the case is headed to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which includes four Trump-nominated and confirmed judges. With the attack on abortion and reproductive healthcare on the rise, we know similar cases regarding our reproductive health and rights could come before Pitlyk if she is confirmed.
In short, once confirmed by Senate leadership, Trump’s judicial nominees like Sarah Pitlyk are intentionally set up to rule on cases that could affect reproductive rights for DECADES to come.
This isn’t the first time the Trump-Pence administration has nominated an unqualified extremist for a judgeship, but even for them, Sarah Pitlyk is an outrageously inappropriate choice. You know it’s bad when the bipartisan American Bar Association unanimously deems a nominee ‘not qualified.’ An entire branch of government is being remade before our eyes, and we need to do everything we can to stop that from happening. They may think that no one is paying attention to federal judgeship nominees and that they can push through extreme individuals like Pitlyk without objection — but they’re wrong.
To Planned Parenthood patients, activists and supporters:
I have never met a group of people more dedicated to real work, more passionate about the mission or more committed to service, so I wanted to reach out to you directly.
Yesterday, the board of directors for Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) appointed me the acting president and CEO of PPFA and Acting President of PPAF. I am so grateful, and really humbled, for the board giving me this opportunity.
I have been part of the Planned Parenthood family for nearly a decade as a volunteer board member and board chair. In that time, I have had the chance to travel across the country and see the incredible work that happens every day at Planned Parenthood health centers. Planned Parenthood doctors, clinicians and staff at 600 health centers open their doors to care for more than 8,000 people each day, providing birth control, cancer screenings, STI testing and treatment, and safe, legal abortion. Planned Parenthood educators give people the information they need to make decisions about their bodies, their health and their lives. And Planned Parenthood volunteers, activists and organizers empower communities to fight for their rights, including the basic human right to access health care.
I have watched this work happen, and every day I am proud to be part of this organization and this movement. I’ve spent my career working at the intersection of academia and racial justice, and I used to tell my students: We find leadership in everyday experiences, but sometimes you see a good fight and you just want in.
So nearly 10 years ago, I jumped in at Planned Parenthood.
For more than a century, Planned Parenthood has been fighting forward, innovating and striving to better serve our patients and the people who depend on us to lead the fight for reproductive rights.
Today, we are defending access to sexual and reproductive health from attacks on many fronts — from the attempt to shut down access to abortion in states across the South and Midwest; to sexual and reproductive health crises including skyrocketing STI rates and rising maternal mortality rates; to attacks by the Trump-Pence administration. Monday, the administration promised to begin enforcing their harmful Title X gag rule, and we’re fighting back in every way we can. The communities we serve face attacks as immigrant families are ripped apart and dehumanized, LGBTQ people — especially trans and nonbinary people — face continued discrimination, and people of color are openly vilified from the highest office in the country.
The stakes are high.
But I would not have agreed to take on the daunting task of leading Planned Parenthood if I did not already know that this organization and this movement are more than equal to the challenge. We are 13 million supporters strong, and we have a long history of taking on big fights — and winning.
And we know the country stands with us. One in five women in this country has been to Planned Parenthood for care in her lifetime. Support for abortion is at a record high, with 77 percent of Americans saying that the Supreme Court should uphold Roe v. Wade and protect access to safe, legal abortion.
Planned Parenthood is strong because our people are strong. Our service is what gives us our power. Our patients trust us to be there for them even when politicians try to stop us from providing care. Our supporters come through for us when the attacks come at us fast and furious — rallying in Georgia, in Alabama, in Missouri, and everywhere our rights and autonomy are threatened. Every day our staff recommit to our mission: to provide excellent, compassionate sexual and reproductive health care, and to ensure that all people, no matter who they are or where they’re from, can access the care they need.
The bottom line is this: Our work and our mission isn’t about one person or even one organization — our work is about the millions of people who need access to affordable and comprehensive health care.
As Planned Parenthood’s acting president, I will honor what each of you do for this organization and this movement. Because you’re not just doing this for the 2.4 million people who get care at Planned Parenthood each year — you’re doing it for my two daughters, and for the next generation who deserves access to care. I will keep us moving forward, toward a more just, equitable future where every person’s health care decisions are their own.
That is my commitment to you.
Our doors are open — today, tomorrow, and into the next century. No matter what.
In solidarity,
Alexis McGill Johnson
UPDATE: A Missouri circuit court judge has granted a preliminary injunction allowing abortion services to continue in Missouri, for the time being. But the state must decide whether to renew the license of the last remaining provider of safe, legal abortion care in Missouri by June 21 — and if access to abortion care is eliminated at this health center, Missouri will become the first state since Roe v. Wade to have zero health centers that provide abortion.
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Missouri is on the verge of becoming the first state without a single licensed abortion provider.
If you only take one thing away from reading this blog, let it be this: this is not a lone moment of crisis. This isn’t about one rogue governor, or cruel bills being passed in another state. In 2019 alone, over 300 (!) bills restricting abortion have been proposed in 47 states, and nearly half are outright bans on abortion. This is despite the fact that 73% of Americans don’t want to see Roe v. Wade overturned.
With Trump’s hand-picked Supreme Court justices, we’re in a national moment of crisis, brought about by a small, dedicated group of people who’ve been mounting a coordinated campaign to overturn Roe v. Wade and ban abortion for decades.
Watch the video: understand the nature of these attacks.
On Friday, May 31, the state of Missouri was expected to block the last remaining licensed abortion center from providing care in the state.
This came on the heels of extreme abortion bans recently passed in
AND in Missouri itself, where Gov. Mike Parson made a decision that could endanger people should it go into effect: signing into law a bill that:
This law has not yet gone into effect — but Missouri isn’t waiting.
In May, Missouri’s only health center that provides abortion, Reproductive Health Services for Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region’s (PPSLR) St. Louis health center, was nearly blocked from renewing its abortion facility license.
The state refuses to renew the abortion license over a completely inappropriate and suspicious request to interrogate (read: intimidate) doctors without explanation. This has nothing to do with patients, and everything to do with politics. The health center isn’t closing, so patients will still be able to get birth control and other sexual and reproductive health care there — but if courts don't step in, patients won’t be able to get abortions there or anywhere else in Missouri.
This is devastating. More than 1.1 million Missouri women of reproductive age are at risk of being blocked from accessing basic reproductive health care in the state in which they live. This is, effectively, a ban on abortion.
Missouri Gov. Mike Parson claims to value life — in a state where maternal mortality rates are 50% higher than the rest of the country, and a syphilis outbreak is sweeping a region of the state, and where he just made health care even harder to access. The hypocrisy is stunning.
Planned Parenthood will never give up on its patients, or on anyone who needs access to abortion care. These bans will not go unchallenged. So step one: just like it did in Alabama last week, Planned Parenthood is suing. (Read the national letter in solidarity with Missouri patients.)
While the abortion ban in Missouri and the bans everywhere affect all of us, we know that these bans will hit people struggling to make ends meet the hardest. And we know in this country, discrimination –– racism, homophobia, transphobia –– is deeply tied to how much money you’re able to make. So while some wealthy women may be able to find a way around the abortion bans, far too many people, particularly people of color, LGTBQ people, and people with low incomes, will be left with no options at all. This is not acceptable.
Text NOBANS to 22422 to join the fight to protect safe, legal, accessible, and affordable abortion for all.
This May, we’re celebrating Sex Education for All Month. #SexEdForAll is about ensuring all young people have the power to access the education and health care they need to make healthy decisions, achieve the best futures for themselves, and live their lives on their terms.
So let’s celebrate the work that young people have done — and will continue to do — as leaders in this movement! Here are the stories of just a few rockstar activists who are advancing sex education in their communities.
At Davidson College in North Carolina, Planned Parenthood Generation Action students used a school campaign grant from Planned Parenthood South Atlantic to survey students about access to over-the-counter sexual wellness products. They found a huge barrier on campus — students wanted better access to emergency contraception. The closest pharmacy sold Plan B One-Step at a relatively high price ($49.99), while the student health center sold it at a more affordable price ($25). But the student health center was closed in the evenings and on weekends.
So, the students installed a vending machine chock full of Plan B One-Step ($18), as well as pads (4 for $2), pantyliners (8 for $2), ibuprofen (2 doses for $2), pregnancy tests ($4 each), condoms (free), dental dams (free), and lubrication (free). The vending machine is popular, and students campuswide have praised the effort.
A bill to block Colorado’s public and charter schools from teaching ineffective abstinence-only programs is headed to the governor’s deskto be signed into law — and that’s thanks in large part to the state’s student activists. Several students testified in support of the bill, prompting fierce backlash from anti-sex education politicians. But the students and the lawmakers supporting the bill prevailed.
One of the students who testified before the state legislature was Clark Wilson. When Clark was in eighth grade, his teacher showed students a used piece of tape to shame them into believing that those who have sex before marriage are “impure.” Now, the bill is set to ban harmful lessons like that statewide, as well as mandate teachings about safer sex and consent in ways that are inclusive of LGBTQ students
Alba Alvarado made condom and sexually transmitted infection (STI) pamphlets available in high school bathrooms throughout the San Rafael, California school district. How? The then-high school senior did research, gave presentations, wrote a policy, and pitched it to the school board. She urged the school board leaders to make condoms accessible for students by installing condom dispensers.
Almost a year and a half later, Alvarado’s proposal passed — but without funding. In support of the policy, the National Coalition of STD Directors coordinated with Trojan Condoms to donate 20,000 condoms to the San Rafael school district.
Students at Bronx Preparatory Middle School in New York City started a podcast called “Sssh! Periods” that combats stigma about menstruation. The eighth-graders were inspired to create the podcast because they heard students and teachers at their school talking uncomfortably about menstruation — and they also noticed that some people in their community couldn’t afford menstrual products.
On the podcast, the girls discuss why they oppose the "pink tax" — which refers to how menstrual products are not tax-exempt in New York, unlike other medical necessities. They also share personal stories of hearing shaming language from others about periods, and empower their listeners to let go of unnecessary “menstrual etiquette.”
At Westford Academy, the only public high school in the town of Westford, two recent graduates made updating their 20-year-old sex education curriculum their senior year capstone project. Their proposed changes included incorporating sexual orientation, gender, and relationship safety into sex education. State officials say the graduates’ work proved to them that inclusive, evidence-based sex education needed to be a priority for school staff, and they’re now updating the curriculum.
Sex education that includes and supports LGBTQ identities can be a powerful tool to help keep LGBTQ young people healthy, and help everybody be better allies
Sex education that's evidence-based and delivered by trained professionals is extremely effective and widely supported in the United States. Planned Parenthood is the nation’s largest provider of sex education, reaching 1.2 million individuals each year, 64% of which are middle school and high school students.
Political appointees are shifting federal grants away from evidence-based health care providers — and toward ideology-driven opponents of our rights.
Political appointees in the Trump-Pence administration have undertaken another sneaky attempt to limit your access to reproductive health care. Using an arcane grantmaking process under Title X — the nation’s only program dedicated to providing affordable birth control and other reproductive health care — the administration is diverting federal funds away from proven, trusted health care providers like Planned Parenthood.
What’s their goal? To steer federal dollars toward ideological opponents of abortion and reproductive rights — and to take a new step toward eliminating people’s access to the full range of reproductive health-care options.
Here’s what you need to know.
Late in March 2019, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) listed recipients of federal grants to provide care under Title X. Grantees deliver access to affordable birth control and reproductive health care to people with low incomes — including many who couldn’t otherwise afford health care services on their own.
Usually a nonevent, the list release made news because the Trump-Pence administration’s grant announcement left out four Planned Parenthood affiliates that have provided care to patients under Title X for years.
Planned Parenthood has a proven record of serving millions of patients through Title X. Recent analysis shows that 41% of people who get care through Title X do so at Planned Parenthood health centers. To exclude proven providers such as Planned Parenthood rewards ideology at the expense of public health — and puts access to Pap tests, cancer screenings, and other potentially lifesaving health care for hundreds of thousands of people at risk.
The administration has attacked reproductive health care under Title X before. In fact, just 3 weeks earlier in 2019, HHS issued a Title X gag ruledesigned to stop patients in the program from getting birth control at places like Planned Parenthood — and prohibit doctors from giving women full information about their sexual and reproductive health care options. The gag rule is scheduled to take effect in early May.
Reproductive health care is health care. By freezing out longtime providers of Title X health care under Title X, the administration has sent a clear signal: it intends to pursue the ultimate goal of its gag rule, which is to take away access to reproductive health care, through every means available.
That the announcement of the gag rule and the ouster of proven providers from Title X happened in quick succession is no coincidence. The Trump-Pence administration has been laser-focused in its pursuit of a clear ideological agenda: blocking access to reproductive health care, including safe, legal abortion and birth control at providers such as Planned Parenthood health centers.
From the early days of his campaign, President Trump promised to appoint judges who would “automatically” rule to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 case which affirmed that access to safe and legal abortion is a constitutional right.
With Justices Kavanaugh and Gorsuch, Trump worked to keep that promise. Beyond the spotlight, however, the White House also worked to fill the ranks of the administration with ideologues who oppose access to safe and legal abortion, birth control — and even comprehensive sex education.
Huber arrived as the Trump-Pence team’s first administrator of Title X after a career of advocating abstinence-only sex education — an ineffective approach that puts teens at heightened risk of teen pregnancy and STDs.
Foley is the Title X program’s current administrator — who before joining the Trump-Pence team had operated two fake women’s health centers in Colorado.
Talento, a White House domestic policy council member who in the past has made the false claim that birth control causes infertility — and who has worked from the White House to undermine access to birth control in the U.S. and beyond.
Bowman, despite a history of arrests connected to his anti-abortion extremism, has the task of keeping HHS compliant with the law. Bowman previously worked as an attorney for anti-abortion fake women’s health centers.
With those hires and others, the Trump-Pence administration has built a team committed to undermining access to the full range of reproductive health options — and one equipped to direct funds meant for the expansion of access to reproductive health care to ideologues who oppose that care.
A senior attorney at the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) warned of such intentions for Title X funds in 2017:
In an interview, [Mara] Gandal-Powers [senior counsel for reproductive rights and health at NWLC] underscored advocates’ “huge concern” that the announcement could unlock federal money for grantees that previously wouldn’t have been eligible to apply or otherwise lack women’s health experience…
“Like a crisis pregnancy center, or something that even has an innocuous name that doesn’t actually know what it’s doing on women’s health, or a state that then would try to administer it in a way that would be preferable to this administration but not helpful for women,” Gandal-Powers said.
After the exclusion of proven providers from Title X grants, concerns about the Trump-Pence administration’s redistribution of reproductive health funds for ideological purposes are no longer hypothetical. Even as they squeeze longtime providers from the Title X program, Trump-Pence political appointees have hung a welcome sign for ideological groups — including operators of ‘health centers’ that push birth control options such as the calendar method, the temperature method, and other fertility awareness methods over common forms of birth control that are up to 99% effective.
One beneficiary of the administration’s ideological largesse: Obria, a California-based network. Obria received a three-year grant worth $1.7 million per year to provide reproductive health care, even though its health centers, by the organization’s own admission, do not provide “contraceptives” — meaning forms of birth control other than fertility awareness methods.
The administration’s apparent decision to favor ideology over evidence-based medicine speaks to the depth of the Trump-Pence team’s bias against evidence-based health care. The current administrator of the Title X program, Diane Foley, was president and CEO of an organization financed by Focus on the Family — an anti-LGBTQ hate group — that operated two Colorado fake women’s health centers. While leading those clinics, Foley propagated unfounded myths about reproductive health care, and even claimed that demonstrating proper condom usage in a sex-education setting was too complicated and could be “sexually harassing.”
Foley and her predecessor in overseeing Title X, Valerie Huber, have long had the goal of curtailing not only people’s access to evidence-based reproductive health care, but also access to evidence-based information about reproductive and sexual health. With the Trump-Pence administration, Foley and Huber have both found their best opportunity to attempt to achieve those ideological goals.
The damage Foley, Huber, and other Trump-Pence political appointees are poised to do to people’s access to reproductive health care is enormous.
The Title X program serves 4 million patients per year, and 41% of patients who receive care under Title X do so at Planned Parenthood health centers — including centers operated by affiliates excluded by Trump-Pence appointees from Title X grants.
In California alone, Planned Parenthood affiliates deliver Title X reproductive health services to 705,000 patients.
In Wisconsin, Planned Parenthood health centers serve four out of five patients — 79 percent — who receive care made possible by Title X.
This health care gives people more control over if and when they have children, and allows people to exercise more control over their lives.
Moreover, we know what happens when politicians succeed at blocking patients from care at Planned Parenthood:
The majority of patients in the Title X program identify as people of color, Hispanic, or Latino; 21% identify as Black or African American, while 33% identify as Hispanic or Latino. Many women of color face delayed health diagnoses and increased mortality rates for breast and cervical cancer — forms of cancer that can be detected early in screenings provided through Title X at Planned Parenthood health centers. And more than half of Planned Parenthood health centers are in rural or underserved communities, where access to health care is often already scant.
But the Trump-Pence administration has subordinated evidence-based health care to its anti-reproductive health ideology time and time again, subjecting the birth control that nine in 10 women will rely on at some point in their lives to attack after attack. The Trump-Pence administration’s quiet attempt to undermine Title X by using reproductive health-care grants for ideological purposes is its latest attack — but there will be more.
And together, we’ll fight to stop every single one of them.
(photo caption: Kim Jorgensen Gane (right) with Sen. Debbie Stabenow (left) at the Power of Pink training)
I am a mother-by-choice. Four times actually. There’s the generation of girls I raised to married adulthood, my daughter and my stepdaughter. And now I have two fifteen-year-old boys in my house, one of whom is our nephew. I’ve been a mom since I was twenty years old. I chose my daughter. I chose motherhood. And I raised her alone for the first six years of her life with no child support.
But motherhood is complicated.
Before we gave birth to you, believe it or not, we were fully formed human beings with hopes and dreams and futures of our own. And for me that includes an abortion story, too. I was nineteen when I had my abortion at the Planned Parenthood clinic in Kalamazoo, Michigan, in 1985. The following year that clinic was firebombed by anti-abortion terrorists. I remember clearly hearing the news on my car radio. I had to pull over to collect myself and all I could think was, ‘Thank God. No one ever has to know.’
I never once regretted my abortion. It was the right choice for me at the time, and it made me a better mother to the children I did choose.
But for years I was silent because of my religious upbringing. I sang my first solo in church when I was five-years-old. And until I was fourteen and my parents divorced, more Sundays than not, my family and I sat next to my grandmother in the front pew of our church.
But when November 2016 happened, silence was no longer an option. I knew my story was important, but I didn’t know how important it was until I was back in Kalamazoo for a Planned Parenthood event and I heard Reverend Nathan Dannison say, “NOWHERE IN SCRIPTURE IS ABORTION CONDEMNED.” I had to choke back tears. His words were a catalyst for lifting the cloud of shame I’d carried with me my entire adult life.
Our shame and our fear are exploited and politicized to keep us silent and to keep us powerless. But we matter. Our stories, big and small, matter.
When women prosper our families prosper, and abortion care is about prioritizing women’s lives, and children’s lives and families over the potential for life. And knowing that that’s okay, knowing that we can forgive ourselves, whether or not we ever choose motherhood in any of its complexities, is a gift I want to pass on to you.
I am 1 in roughly 4 women who has accessed abortion care by the time she is 45. And I’m a mother-by-choice. And I’m a sister and a wife and a daughter. The more we can pull back that curtain and reveal our struggles and our truths, the more people will go into that booth and vote to save Roe.
I believe that telling my story is Divine work.
I am not ashamed. And ~we~ are not alone.
The case could have opened the door to “defunding” Planned Parenthood. Not today.
On Monday, the Supreme Court refused to hear a case that could have opened the door for states to try to “defund” Planned Parenthood. The case tried to remove Planned Parenthood as a Medicaid health care provider in Kansas and Louisiana.
The Supreme Court’s decision means the lower court’s ruling stands — which protects Medicaid patients who rely on Planned Parenthood for birth control, cancer screenings, and STD testing and treatment.
The case is a reminder: Not only is it dangerous to block care at Planned Parenthood, but it’s also deeply unpopular.
Poll after poll shows that American people overwhelmingly support Planned Parenthood and strongly oppose these attacks. Just last month, voters made clear that they want more access to health care — not less — when they voted to flip the House and elect leaders who will protect our sexual and and reproductive rights.
“We are pleased that lower court rulings protecting patients remain in place. As a doctor, I have seen what’s at stake when people cannot access the care they need, and when politics gets in the way of people making their own health care choices. We won’t stop fighting for every patient who relies on Planned Parenthood for life-saving, life-changing care.”
— Dr. Leana Wen, President, Planned Parenthood Federation of America
We already know what happens when politicians block access to critical health care at Planned Parenthood: health outcomes worsen, and women suffer.
Nationwide, safety-net clinics in 67 percent of counties would have had to double their capacity in order to make up for the Planned Parenthood patients who would have been blocked from access to health care.
Those who’d be hurt the most are people who already face systemic barriers to accessing health care because of racist and discriminatory policies — especially people of color, people with low to moderate incomes, and people who live in rural areas.
With about a dozen cases on abortion heading to the Supreme Court, Planned Parenthood's fight isn't over. We’re using this victory to fuel us forward even more wins for reproductive rights in 2019 and beyond.
Our movement is powerful because we are unstoppable. Join us: unstoppablenow.org
Art by: Zoe Buckman
After 12 incredible years, Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards is stepping down. Here’s how Cecile has changed the game for Planned Parenthood — now the most popular political institution in the U.S. — and our movement for reproductive rights.
Planned Parenthood patients were at the center of everything Cecile fought for as president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. She put patients first – connecting them with health care providers faster through innovative projects like online appointment scheduling and online health services, working to expand access to health care in underserved communities, lifting up their stories, and advocating for them to lawmakers.
Cecile was a fearless leader in the face of unprecedented and unpopular attacks on Planned Parenthood. From testifying before Congress to leading the fight against smear campaigns and efforts to block patients from care at Planned Parenthood health centers, Cecile amplified the voices of millions of patients who rely on Planned Parenthood for basic health care.
Cecile earned a reputation as a champion for women, girls, and families around the world. Alongside Planned Parenthood Global and grassroots leaders, Cecile pushed back against attacks on reproductive rights, including the deadly global gag rule and the dangerous funding cuts to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) — one of the world’s most wide-reaching and vital sources of contraceptive supplies.
In the summer of 2013, Cecile teamed up with Sen. Wendy Davis and thousands of Texans to protest harmful and medically unnecessary abortion restrictions, flooding the State Capitol building and marching down the streets of Austin in support of the constitutional right to safe, legal abortion.
Cecile was on the front lines advocating for the Affordable Care Act (ACA) — the single biggest advancement for women’s health in a generation. She worked tirelessly with members of Congress to include the ACA’s no-copay birth control benefit — which gave more than 62 million women access to free contraception and has contributed to the lowest rate of unintended pregnancy among teens in our nation’s history.
Over the past 12 years, Cecile helped build a powerful movement to protect and expand reproductive health and rights. Along the way, she built strong relationships with patients, supporters, medical providers, celebrities, advocates and more — bringing folks from all walks of life into important conversations to shape our country.
At women’s marches around the world, millions of people took to the streets in the most important display of power, unity, and solidarity in recent history. Cecile joined more than half a million organizers, troublemakers, and hell-raisers in Washington, D.C., to fight for a future in which everyone can live their life on their own terms.
Under the Trump-Pence administration, showing up for our patients’ communities and the partner organizations that serve them is more important than ever. From supporting the Black Lives Matter movement to advocating for undocumented communities to joining the fight against gun violence to highlighting the importance of voting (and being registered to vote!), Planned Parenthood’s fight for a more just and equitable world includes strong allyship and cross-movement building.
A new generation of organizers and activists is standing up and fighting back against attacks on our health, rights, and communities. Cecile uplifted young people’s voices by supporting initiatives led by young people – like the Planned Parenthood Generation Action, which boasts over 300 campus groups across the country, and March. Vote. Win,, which mobilizes voters nationwide to get involved and take back political power.
Cecile departs Planned Parenthood with more members, supporters, donors, and activists than ever before. Her devotion to reproductive health and rights is far from over, and she’ll continue to be a voice and advocate for women and girls in the U.S. and around the world. From the bottom of our hearts, we thank Cecile for her incredible leadership over the past 12 years. We can’t wait to see what she’ll do next.
Send a message of gratitude to Cecile Richards and thank her for all she's done to support health care access, reproductive rights, and Planned Parenthood patients everywhere.
In places like Mississippi and Tennessee, anti-abortion state legislators are making it near impossible for women to get the care they need.
“I work for Planned Parenthood because Black women want and deserve access to the full range of reproductive health care — but this persistent lie is threatening their ability to obtain it." - Tamika Turner
Dear David Brooks,
Yesterday, I watched as you used your space in the New York Times to insert yourself into an issue about which you know nothing. As I was watching, I kept wondering: Who advised him that this was a good idea? Does he think abortion only exists as a word printed on the pages of bills? Has he ever talked with someone who needed an abortion?
Have you talked to Marla in Ohio, who found out 22 weeks into her pregnancy with her fourth child that the fetus had a rare chromosomal disorder called Trisomy 9 with multiple organs severely malformed? She had to travel out of the state to get an abortion. Imagine if she had to travel out of the country, because some politicians were worried about “our chance at congressional majorities.”
I understand you might not have time to talk to these folks from the heights of your perch at the New York Times, so maybe you can get some perspective by reading. Try here, here, here, here, here, or here. Even though nearly 99 percent of abortions happen before 20 weeks gestation, there are many reasons a woman might need or want one after 20 weeks. None of those reasons are any of your business.
While reading, perhaps you can get your facts straight about what Americans want and need from their government right now. Maybe start with this in-depth survey, in which 60 percent of voters say that abortion after 20 weeks should be legal, and in which 62 percent of Republican voters say this is not an issue on which their elected public servants to be spending their time. Then, in case you missed the recent Democratic victories of pro-abortion rights candidates in Virginia and Alabama, read about how Democratic and independent voters want representatives who support abortion rights. Support for Roe v Wade is the highest ever, with nearly 70 percent of Americans wanting to protect the right to abortion.
And if polls aren’t enough to convince you, consider that one in four women in the U.S. have an abortion, and that women are currently the most potent political force in this country. They’re organizing, running, voting, and winning for Democrats. It’s laughable to think that if Democrats stop fighting for their rights, they’ll stay energized and mobilized.
David, I wonder whether you have ever been pregnant when you really did not want to be. I wonder if you have ever felt that a political party has more control over your body than you do yourself.
No? Then please take a seat.
Sincerely,
Dawn Laguens, Executive Vice President of Planned Parenthood Federation of America
After 12 incredible years working alongside some of the most committed and compassionate people in the world, the time has come for me to move on to my next chapter — and for new voices to take the lead at Planned Parenthood.
It’s been the greatest honor of my life to be part of this movement with you, and with the millions of people who stand with Planned Parenthood to protect and expand access to care.
Over the past decade, we have faced down challenges that once seemed impossible to overcome. We have found new ways to lift up our voices and speak our truth. And most important of all, we have helped Planned Parenthood patients receive care they simply could not get anywhere else.
And through it all, through thrilling victories and moments of mourning, we have stood shoulder to shoulder together. What a profound privilege it has been — to stand with you, to work with you, to celebrate and grieve and build hope with you. I said it on my first day here, and I have never forgotten it: people like you are the heart and soul of this organization.
It’s because of your dedication that I know Planned Parenthood will continue to grow and thrive, and to lead the fight for our health and rights. We will need you to keep speaking out when lawmakers threaten access to care. We will need you to keep supporting the health centers that so many patients rely on. We will need every ounce of your courage, your compassion, your commitment to help ensure that every person can control their own body and decide their own future.
And though I will be stepping down from my leadership role, believe me when I say that I will be with you every step of the way. No matter what.
I want you to be among the first to hear from me that I will be stepping down from my position as president of Planned Parenthood this year. I have so much I want to say to Planned Parenthood supporters like you in this moment.
Please take a minute to watch:
Cecile Richards, President Planned Parenthood Federation of America
Thank you for everything you have done and will do to defend our health and rights. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.
