On Monday, Cecile Richards left behind a legacy of 3.5 million aborted babies as the outgoing CEO of the “nonprofit” Planned Parenthood.
During her 12 years at the abortion group, Richards’ salary edged near $1 million a year, while Planned Parenthood’s patient numbers dropped by about half a million and its non-abortion services shrank drastically. Its most recent annual report showed a record income of $1.46 billion, with about half a billion dollars coming from taxpayers.
Richards has made a lot of outrageous statements during her time as CEO, and has received numerous accolades for them. Here are the top 10:
1. Aborting her unborn baby “wasn’t a difficult decision”
In 2014, Richards wrote an essay for Elle magazine describing why she aborted one of her four children. She urged other women to share their abortion stories as well to end the “stigma” surrounding the issue.
“I had an abortion. It was the right decision for me and my husband, and it wasn’t a difficult decision,” Richards wrote. “Before becoming president of Planned Parenthood eight years ago, I hadn’t really talked about it beyond family and close friends. But I’m here to say, when politicians argue and shout about abortion, they’re talking about me — and millions of other women around the country.”
2. “We do not have mammogram machines … and we never stated that we did.”
This became one of Richards’ most infamous deceptions. In 2011, Richards went on The Joy Behar Show to claim that a bill to defund Planned Parenthood would hurt women.
“… millions of women in this country are going to lose their health care access, not to abortion services, to basic family planning– you know, mammograms, cancer screenings, cervical cancer,” Richards said at the time.
She and her abortion chain repeatedly touted mammograms as a service. In 2015, however, while under oath, she told a U.S. Congressional hearing a different story.
“We do not have mammogram machines at our health centers and we’ve never stated that we did,” Richards told U.S. House leaders.
3. “Abortion … [is] part of the fabric of American life.”
In celebration of Planned Parenthood’s 100th anniversary in 2017, Richards wrote an oped for Time magazine in which she claimed that Planned Parenthood’s business of killing unborn babies is an essential part of American life.
“Since the legalization of abortion in 1973, Planned Parenthood has proudly provided abortion care and fought every effort to roll back our rights. We are part of the fabric of American life in all 50 states,” Richards wrote.
4. “Put simply: a 20-week abortion ban lacks compassion & it lacks respect.”
Richards tweeted this in 2015 after the U.S. House passed the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. The popular bill would have prohibited abortions after 20 weeks on unborn babies who are capable of feeling pain and very close to viability. The U.S. is one of just seven countries that permit elective abortions after 20 weeks, a fact confirmed by the Washington Post.
Richards, however, claimed the legislation was not “compassionate” and would “hurt women.”
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5. “This is unacceptable and I personally apologize for the staff member’s tone and statements” in reference to the undercover baby body parts trafficking videos
Richard issued this apology after the Center for Medical Progress released its first video showing top Planned Parenthood employee Deborah Nucatola discussing over lunch how they crush and harvest aborted babies’ body parts.
When a U.S. Congressional committee later questioned Richards about what she was apologizing for, Richards would not say.
6. “We’ve been acquitted of everything.”
Richards claimed innocence in February at a New Jersey pro-abortion rally when accused of illegally selling aborted baby body parts.
She told NJTV News: “As you probably know, there were congressional investigations that were politically motivated. We’ve been acquitted of everything, so that’s simply not true.”
Far from being acquitted, in December, the U.S. Department of Justice said it is investigating whether the abortion chain illegally sold aborted baby body parts. Richards announced her resignation a few weeks later.
7. “I think we were one of the original fake news targets.”
Richards did not name a single example of a source that targeted her abortion chain, but she made the claim anyway at Recode, a media and technology conference in California.
One of the things abortion activists have been crying “fake news” about the undercover videos exposing Planned Parenthood for potentially illegally selling aborted baby parts. However, two separate forensic analyses found the videos were not manipulated or tampered with. One extensive analysis found the only edits in the videos consisted of bathroom breaks and time eating meals. Even the forensic analysis paid for by Planned Parenthood reported “there was no ‘widespread evidence of substantive video manipulation.’”
8. “President Trump’s offer to not ‘defund’ Planned Parenthood health centers if we turn our backs on people seeking abortion is obscene and insulting.”
In a March 2017 email to supporters, Richards made it clear that abortion is the top priority at Planned Parenthood. A few days earlier, news broke that President Donald Trump offered to support Planned Parenthood’s taxpayer funding if it agreed to stop aborting unborn babies. Richards refused and later described the offer as “obscene and insulting.”
9. President Trump Has “Both Barrels Aimed at Women”
“The actions we’re seeing and what we’ve seen out of this administration from day one have had both barrels aimed at women,” Richards told Politico in 2017 after the president defunded the international arm of Planned Parenthood, appointed pro-life leaders to his administration and cut off sex education grants to the abortion chain’s failing programs.
10. Abortion is “key to women’s opportunity”
In a 2015 piece for Time magazine, Richards praised actress Jemima Kirke for publicly sharing her abortion story. Kirke claimed that aborting her unborn baby helped her through difficult economic circumstances.
“Jemima’s story was also a reminder that the ability to decide when or whether to have children is key to women’s opportunity to be financially secure and pursue their dreams,” Richards said.
