L A Scott Photography provides photograhy services of all kinds at a reasonable cost and exceptional quality!
01/21/2025
No she did not flinch.
・・・
I first knew of Cecile Richards because of her mom, writes Ilyse Hogue.
The first election cycle I was old enough to vote, I voted for Ann Richards for governor of Texas. Pulling the lever for Ann made my young Texan feminist heart flutter. Two decades later, I found myself almost speechless sitting across a table from her daughter at a downtown D.C. eatery. Cecile was the president of Planned Parenthood, and I had recently assumed the position of president of NARAL Pro-Choice American (now Reproductive Freedom for All). Cecile had taken me out to lunch to congratulate me, read the newbie into the movement strategy and–as I later learned–to induct me into a sisterhood of women who left perfectly respectable careers to instead fight for abortion rights.
Cecile never flinched. She occupied the position with a zealousness of a missionary and the certainty of an oracle. Her aggressive warnings about the state of abortion care were dismissed by some as hysterical and shrill before becoming apparently prescient as the attacks on reproductive health care ramped up in President Obama’s second term. Cecile had a knack for turning attacks into opportunities. When the Susan G. Komen foundation announced they would defund Planned Parenthood because it provided abortions to patients, Cecile unleashed a juggernaut of fundraising that would grow the organization's profile and bolster its resources for the wars to come. The summer I had my twins, schooled in the lead-up by Cecile who had born her own twins years prior, Cecile was hauled to testify before Congress. I remember watching on TV while feeding my babies as an always-prepared Cecile stoically answered every cynical question, defending Planned Parenthood against politically trumped-up charges and doctored video footage. In 12 hours of relentless interrogation, she became a hero in the raging war of political disinformation, refusing to yield an inch that might jeopardize patients’ access to life-changing care.
At the link in bio, read Hogue's remembrance of Richards, who died at 67 on Jan. 20.
Photograph by Ilana Panich-Linsman—The New York Times/Redux
