Biden awards Ex-Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards highest civilian honor
The former president of the nation's largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood, has received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States' highest civilian honor, disappointing pro-life advocates.
In an X post Wednesday, President Joe Biden announced that he had awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Cecile Richards, who served as president of Planned Parenthood from 2006-2018. Richards was diagnosed with an incurable form of brain cancer last year.
Biden shared a picture of himself and first lady Jill Biden at the White House with Richards and her husband, accompanied by a caption reading: "With absolute courage, she fearlessly leads us forward to be the America we say we are — a nation of freedom."
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"Through her work to lift up the dignity of workers, defend and advance women's reproductive rights and equality, and mobilize Americans to exercise their power to vote, she has carved an inspiring legacy," he added.
Richards reacted to her recognition in a separate X post Wednesday.
"Such an honor representing abortion rights and the need for health care for all," she wrote. "@POTUS and @FLOTUS, thank you for all you've done to support women's health and rights. Here's to the work ahead!"
According to a White House pool report, the following statement was delivered at the private ceremony:
"With absolute courage and conviction, Cecile Richards fearlessly leads us forward to be the America we say we are — a Nation of freedom. Carrying her parents’ torch for justice, she’s led some of our Nation’s most important civil rights causes — to lift up the dignity of workers, defend and advance women’s reproductive rights and equality, and mobilize Americans to exercise their power to vote. A leader of utmost character, she has carved an inspiring legacy that endures in her incredible family, the countless lives she has made better, and a Nation seeking the light of equality, justice, and freedom.”
Richards being awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom did not sit well with pro-life activists, such as Lila Rose, founder of the advocacy group Live Action.
"Cecile Richards presided over the abortions of 3.9 million babies as president of Planned Parenthood," Rose wrote in an X post published Wednesday. "She belongs in jail. Not in the White House receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom."
Kristan Hawkins, president of the pro-life advocacy group Students for Life of America, expressed disgust.
"Cecile Richards was just given an award for killing babies in the name of 'freedom' by the Biden Administration," she lamented in an X post Thursday.
"According to Planned Parenthood's own annual reports, under Richards' leadership, 3.5 million children died unspeakably cruel deaths in barbaric acts of abortion," Hawkins asserted. "Some of these children's bodies were then dissected and sold to the highest bidder. Planned Parenthood representatives haggled over prices for livers and brains."
Hawkins stated that "Planned Parenthood's abortions skyrocketed under Richards even as the organization's total number of clients plummeted year after year. Cecile Richards is anything but honorable. What a disgrace."
Throughout Richards' tenure at Planned Parenthood, the organization was subject to scrutiny over undercover videos implying officials at the abortion provider aided in prostitution and admitted to selling aborted fetal tissue, with pro-lifers alleging the abortion provider violated federal law. The undercover videos led to efforts to defund Planned Parenthood, which receives millions of dollars in taxpayer funding every year.
While Planned Parenthood has sought to portray itself as a provider of women's healthcare in general as opposed to an organization that specifically focuses on abortion, Richards testified under oath to the Republican-controlled United States House of Representatives in 2015 that Planned Parenthood does not provide mammograms. Richards had previously insisted that women would lose access to mammograms if Planned Parenthood stopped receiving taxpayer dollars.
Then-President Barack Obama made a similar assertion on the campaign trail in 2012: "There are millions of women all across the country who rely on Planned Parenthood for not just contraceptive care: they rely on it for mammograms, for cervical cancer screenings."
Although Richards stepped down from her role as Planned Parenthood head in 2018, she continues to engage in abortion advocacy.
Richards has co-founded a website titled "Abortion in America," which seeks to tell the "stories" of the "thousands of people around the country [who] have been impacted by abortion bans" enacted at the state level after the U.S. Supreme Court determined that the U.S. Constitution does not contain a right to abortion in its 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organizationdecision. Following the Dobbs ruling, several states have implemented abortion restrictions.
Richards describes herself as the co-founder of Charley, marketed as "the private and secure abortion chatbot."
Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: ryan.foley@christianpost.com
