President Joe Biden awarded the presidential medal of freedom to Cecile Richards, the former president of Planned Parenthood, on Wednesday in recognition of her “absolute courage.”
“Today, I had the honor of awarding Cecile Richards the Presidential Medal of Freedom,” Biden said. “With absolute courage, she fearlessly leads us forward to be the America we say we are — a nation of freedom. 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.”
The daughter of the late Texas governor Ann Richards, Richards spent 12 years as Planned Parenthood’s chief, during which time she oversaw more than three million abortions. When Richards, who was previously Nancy Pelosi’s deputy chief of staff, stepped down from Planned Parenthood in 2018, she said that it was “an incredible honor to be a part of this organization — as a patient, as president and now, as a lifelong supporter and champion.”
It was during Richards’s tenure that a senior executive for Planned Parenthood was caught on an undercover video negotiating payments for fetal tissue from aborted babies. Although the legitimacy of the video was contested, Planned Parenthood refused to provide documentation about the various biotech firms it contracted with, leading Republican lawmakers to question if the organization lied when it claimed that it did not receive payments for fetal body parts.
National Review‘s Kathryn Jean Lopez asked Alliance Defending Freedom’s then-senior counsel Casey Mattox how Richards should address the scandal at the time.
“Planned Parenthood clinics received payments for baby body parts from Stem Express, a for-profit company that obtained the parts on-site and left with them, eliminating the need for any reimbursements for shipping, packaging, transportation, or related costs,” he said in response. “How do you justify the payments received by Planned Parenthood for baby body parts under that arrangement with Stem Express and how do you respond to Stem Express’s promise in its marketing materials — bearing the endorsement of a Planned Parenthood official that it would ‘fiscally reward’ and provide a ‘financial benefit’ to abortion clinics for their baby body parts?”
The medal is among America’s highest civilian honors and is awarded to individuals who make “an especially meritorious contribution to (1) the security or national interests of the United States, or (2) world peace, or (3) cultural or other significant public or private endeavors,” John F. Kennedy declared when he passed an executive order instituting the award in 1963.