Rock For Choice

With a memoir, former Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards imparts lessons for a new generation of abortion activists.

- Nina Burleigh

FOR MORE THAN A DECADE, Cecile Richards was the public face of the abortion rights movement. Wearing her trademark blue—and sometimes hot-pink—suits, the head of Planned Parenthood saw the national women’s health organization through a tumultuous time, from escalating death threats on abortion providers to increased protests of clinics to the viral controversy over fake videos that alleged her group profited from fetal remains. Then, last year, she stepped down. But her resignation, she tells Newsweek, is far from retirement.

Her latest book, Make Trouble: Standing Up, Speaking Out and Finding the Courage to Lead, serves as a guidebook for a new generation of feminist activists; the paperback edition—released in March—includes a nine-point “Women’s Declaration of Independence.” The mission to protect abortion rights, she says, is more urgent than ever.

President Donald Trump, of course, has appointed two Supreme Court justices believed likely to vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 ruling legalizing abortion in the United States if given the opportunity. And the Trump administration has targeted reproductive health in other ways. In May 2018, the Department of Health and Human Services announced it intended to block clinics that counsel or provide abortions—including Planned Parenthood—from receiving funds from the so-called Title X program, which provides more than $250 million annually for birth control and other reproductive health care services to approximately 4 million people. The final version of the so-called “gag rule” was published March 4 in the Federal Register. On March 12, a federal appeals court upheld an Ohio law declining public funding for Planned Parenthood.