Cecile Richards

Cecile Richards is the current president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. She previously founded and served as president of America Votes, a coalition of more than thirty national organizations. Before that she was deputy chief of staff to Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic majority leader in the U.S. House of Representatives. She has also worked at the Turner Foundation.

She is the daughter of former Texas governor Ann Richards. She attended St. Stephen's Episcopal School in Austin, Texas and graduated from Brown University in 1980. In 1995, she founded the Texas Freedom Network. She is married to Kirk Adams, a labor organizer with the Service Employees International Union, and has three teenage children. She lives in New York City.

On August 1, 2008, Cecile demonstrated the need for the services of Planned Parenthood to the Democratic party platform as aired on C-Span. Ms. Richards discussed the party's need to focus on funding and or support for issues such as abortion, women and teens' reproductive health care, education on smart living and healthy lives, compassionate care to rape victims, and ensuring access to pre- and postnatal health care programs. Cecile is quoted as saying at the end of her address, "Women's health matters."

External links

* [http://www.plannedparenthood.org/about-us/national-leadership/cecile-richards.htm Cecile Richards] at Planned Parenthood