On April 30, Cecile Richards stepped down as head of Planned Parenthood, causing a wave of tributes on social media to her strength and leadership in the reproductive rights movement. In her 12 years heading the organization, Richards shaped it in dramatic ways, expanding both its health care services and its political advocacy. She is now promoting her memoir, "Make Trouble: Standing Up, Speaking Out, and Finding the Courage to Lead-My Life Story."
She sat down with Salon recently for an interview about reproductive health care, her political struggles and her late mother, Gov. Ann Richards.
You write in the book that Planned Parenthood was dealing with fake news before that term even became famous. You were subject to a series of hoaxes, falsely accusing the organizations of all sorts of terrible things, including that you sell baby parts. You were called in front of Congress to defend yourself against these ridiculous hoaxes. What is your advice to the rest of us in the age of Trump, when lying and hoaxes unfortunately becoming normal in politics?
Yeah. Look it’s a big problem. I wish I had the magic solution. And I will say that because in many ways, Planned Parenthood was up first, we have worked with so many other organizations who’ve also been targets of these kinds of fake news attacks and undercover videos. I think it’s really important that what we did is to stand up for what we’re about and what we do.
I think that certainly being called in front of Congress wouldn’t be how I’d spent my time, nor be the topic of all these really awful attacks, and some terrible things happened, I don’t want to minimize that. But we also had try to find a way to use it, to educate people about Planned Parenthood. Even the hearing before Congress, that ended up growing the knowledge base, frankly, for people around the country, for us to be able to tell our story about the important health care that we provide and what we do for our patients.
But there isn’t any simple way. I think one of the things that’s really important is taking this stuff seriously. We learned early on that you can’t let a lie or a misinterpretation sit for even a second, and again, this is a capacity that I think progressive organizations now have to have in a very serious way. A capacity to be in a 24/7 news cycle and communications framework and also really have the capacity to monitor what’s being said and done on social media. I will say I think the progressive movement is far behind the right on this, and it’s something we all have to invest in.
It does seem to me that there has been an escalation of these kinds of attacks on nonprofits like Planned Parenthood. What do you think accounts for that?
I don’t exactly know what accounts for it. Obviously, there were a couple of groups that specialize in this. I think that one of the things that I see on the right is they are so much more willing to lie, cheat, steal, deceive, break the law — tactics that frankly we don’t use in the progressive community. I do think that they have that advantage. The other is, they’ve got a lot of money. People who really probably could care less about the issue, but have complete focus on undermining any progressive institution that has either capacity or political power.
I remember when we were first under attack, actually, you may remember, I mean, this is when they had essentially done the same thing to ACORN and were able to, essentially, completely destabilize ACORN and the organization shut down. I was very aware of that when we were next. In fact, going to the United States Senate and talking about the attacks we were under, people were very aware of that many progressive folks voted to defund the ACORN.
There’s a history of success that the right has had; that’s why I think it’s important that we not let them succeed. Now we work with other groups — environmental groups, voter registration groups, progressive groups, education groups — that have been under attack as well.
One piece of your book that’s getting a lot of press is your encounter with Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump. They offered to protect Planned Parenthood’s funding in exchange for the group ending abortion services. That they tried to bribe you, I think, is obviously objectionable, but I want to give you an opportunity to explain why that deal will not fly, just on its surface.
I just want to also add one other piece of it. I don’t think they had any idea what they were doing. I mean, I know what they were trying to do, but it’s almost laughable to think that someone would actually meet with Planned Parenthood and say, “if you will do this, I’ll go guarantee your funding” in a Republican-led Congress. I mean just on the face of it. Even if that was something we would consider, which we never would. They couldn’t guarantee anything. I just think that there’s an aspect to it that’s pretty surreal.
We are a health care provider to about two and half million people every single year, and abortion services are not the main part of what we do, but they’re a critical part of what we do.
As you probably know, in many cities, many states, including our home state of Texas, in some areas we’re the only access to safe and legal abortion that women have. Particularly [for] women who are uninsured or women with little income. This has been part of our DNA, if you will, forever: to stand up for women and all people’s reproductive health care. This is just not something that we’re ever going to give up on.
The whole idea was over the minute that Jared Kushner made this proposal. I did think it was important to at least let them know that the kind of things that this administration is trying to do to “defund Planned Parenthood” or block women on Medicaid, for example, or people on Medicaid, from coming to us for health care, what it was going to do? It’s going to mean millions of people are going to lose access or would lose an access to birth control, cancer screenings, and the like — and again, I refer to Texas because I know we both can really empathize with what’s going on down there — a lot of women in the state of Texas have lost that care already because of the politicians there who put their own personal politics ahead of the health of women.
You speak openly about your own abortion and why you needed to end an unplanned pregnancy. Why did you make this decision, and what would you like others to learn from the choice to talk openly about it?
I really want to give credit to the reproductive justice community and other groups that have started, like Shout Your Abortion, for being in the forefront of this. Realizing that by not talking openly, for those people who can, we were potentially contributing to the shame that some people feel. Look, I’m very privileged to have a very supportive family. I have a very supportive partner. This was never something I always felt ashamed about, but I realized by not talking about it publicly perhaps I should do more.
My story was not dramatic. It was actually a very, very common story of just someone who gets pregnant when they don’t intend to be. Terminating my pregnancy was something that was, it was personal to me, but I felt like if telling my story helped any other person, then it was my intention to do that and that’s part of my purpose. Since that article was published years ago, many women have come up to me, on airports, on the streets, total strangers who just said, “Thank you for sharing your story, it really helped me in my own circumstance.” I’m privileged I was able to do that and I’m really grateful to all the people who’ve done it as well.
Your book is about leadership, and particularly about women taking leadership, and you don’t shy away from the word “feminist” and instead chronicle the way women have been standing up and speaking out. It seems more than ever before, we have [events like] the Women’s March, things like Wendy Davis of Texas filibustering to protect abortion rights, and the way women across the country have [been] taking the lead and organizing the resistance. Why do you think more women than ever before seem to be stepping into the fray?
I think women are sick and tired of what’s happening in Congress, in [state] legislatures, in Washington and this White House. The exciting thing is women now are, we’re almost half the workforce, we’re half the college students, if not more. Women are now in all areas of our economy and the thought that there are now politicians who’ve been elected who are going to try to move us a back to a time before we had rights is just unthinkable. I think there’s a generational change happening.
One of the things that was encouraging to me about the women’s marches and also the activity I’ve seen around the country is it’s not just women who are feminists or who support women's equality. Increasingly, it’s men as well. I think that I’ve seen a generational shift in that a lot of fathers now really expect their daughters to have every opportunity that their sons have. That is not something that used to be, and particularly, I would say, even back in Texas. I don’t think that’s how I was raised.
Solving the issue of women’s equality, women’s rights, isn’t something that women are going to do on their own. I think we need men to step up as well and I think, increasingly, they are.
[I've been] an organizer my whole life. I’ve been a labor organizer, I’ve worked on pretty much every issue you could imagine, and I have never seen the kind of organic explosion of grassroots activity that I have in the last 14 months and it’s incredibly exciting.
Speaking of Texas, your mom was Ann Richards. She was the last Democratic governor of Texas. With all your organizing and experience, what do you think can be done to help red states like Texas get back to their Democratic roots?
Vote. That’s basically it. I mean, it’s incredible when you think about Texas, which is really interesting now. I was just back home and Houston, I think, is now the most diverse city in the country. Texas is now a majority-minority state, which is sort of an oxymoron. But in any case, we don’t vote.
Forty-eight percent of voters turned out in the Presidential election in Texas. The national average was 60 percent. If people voted in Texas, it would be very different. Now, we know, too, that in Texas, the governor, the legislature, the attorney general, they’ve done everything they can to make it harder for people to vote. I don’t mean to say this is an easy thing, but it is really important that we do everything that we can to register folks, ensure their ability to get to the polls and that they vote, because that’s what’s going to change.
In fact, when we talk about mom’s election — she was never supposed to win that race. There was never a poll showing Ann Richards — this progressive, feminist woman — could be elected, but because there was such an outpouring of grassroots activity around the state and people were motivated, we won on election day. And so I know it can be done again.
It’s interesting being back. There’s a lot of enthusiasm. There are a lot of folks running for office. I think every Congressional race is now contested. That hasn’t happened in a long time.
Unless people run, we can’t win. I’m excited to see so many people not waiting to be asked. It’s really women not waiting their turn [now], just filing for office and running.
Speaking of your mom, what did you learn from her about leadership and what could the rest of us learn?
There’s a lot of Ann Richards’ wisdom, I hope, in the book. She was a big believer in women supporting other women, for sure.
I think we also see that women think somehow we have to have the perfect resume or we have to have had all the right experiences, our kids have to be this certain age, everything has to align for us take a chance. And she was a big believer in, “you just have to take every chance you get.”
I counsel women on this all the time. I have never had a man come to me and say, “I'd really like to try for this job, but I don’t think I’m qualified.” But I would say I hear that from women all the time. Mom just used to say, “Just imagine — what’s the worst thing that could happen? If you can get over that, then you should try it.”
I almost didn’t even go to the interview at Planned Parenthood because I thought, I’m not qualified to do that. I’ve never run anything that big. And so I called my mom and said, “I just don’t think this is, you know, my kids are in school," and [gave her] all the reasons, and she said, “Cecile, you will never get over the fact that you didn’t try for this if you don’t go to that interview.”
She was big [on] "no regrets." This is the only life you have. That’s a little bit of Ann Richards.
Planned Parenthood has two components: the health care delivery services and then the political organizing aspect, which you really seemed to have expanded during your time there. Why was it so important to you to do that for Planned Parenthood?
Honestly, that’s really why I think that I was chosen to come in at the time I did because increasingly, even though we are the expert at providing reproductive health care and in all the new developments in new types of abortion care and new types of birth control — Planned Parenthood has always been at the forefront and really trying to break new ground — but increasingly, it was difficult to even deliver the care that folks wanted because of politics. I think this was just an opportunity over these last 12 years to build the movement side of the organization, which to me goes hand in hand with our health care delivery. Because the things that we’re fighting for are not just our patients, it’s for people everywhere to get reproductive health care, and I think that’s some of the most important work I feel we’ve done in the last 12 years.
One of the most exciting things, actually, since the election, is that we’ve gained about two million new supporters and nearly half of those are our patients. When I say supporters, I mean people who are advocates. They’ve taken action to call Congress or show up at town hall meeting or sign a petition or run for office. To me, the more that these things dovetail — our health care delivery and our movement side — that’s when we really are the most powerful, and frankly, being able to lift up the real lived experiences of the people that we serve has been incredibly important ,and I’m excited to see them taking on all kinds of new leadership roles.
Now that you’ve got a memoir out, what’s coming next for you?
I don’t really know, Amanda. I am stepping aside from my role. I think it’s important to give space and room to a new leader.
But I will never be quiet on issues of reproductive rights and reproductive justice. I’ll be in the fight. I think, immediately, I’m really interested in doing everything we can to mobilize women to vote in November. When I was in Texas, I was talking to Wendy Davis, our Senator who led the filibuster there, and 58 percent of the primary voters in Texas were women. In many, many states, women are now out-performing as voters and that’s something I’d like to spend more time [working with] because women are shaping the foundation of this country. I think, now, politically, culturally and every other way, I just want to make sure that in addition to marching and showing up in town hall meetings and calling Congress, that we’re voting. Because if we do, we’re going to change the future.
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