Former Planned Parenthood chief Cecile Richards is living with brain cancer but says she is still fighting for abortion access.
In an interview with New York magazine feature writer Irin Cameron, Richards revealed her state of health and set out what it is like living with incurable brain cancer for which the median survival rate is 15 months.
She told Cameron that doctors have been encouraged by her response:
“I am sleeping. I’m eating. I’m having fun. I’m working. It’s like Pinocchio — I’m a real boy, and that feels really good,” Richards says. “Because six months ago, I didn’t know that this was possible.”
She’s still working through it: Once, she would bake five pies for a 12-person Thanksgiving; now, she’s relearning how to roll out a piecrust. Richards will be visiting her grandson in D.C. that weekend, and soon she and Peterson are heading to Louisiana to work on the documentation project. Adams says they’re talking about the spring and the summer.
The 66-year-old went on to confirm she remains involved with Planned Parenthood and “talking to movement leaders on strategy,” defiantly challenging Republicans she alleges “are running and hiding on this issue.”
She is also working on a bot she co-created “that helps abortion seekers get good information on how to safely end their pregnancies.”
File/Planned Parenthood Federation of America President Cecile Richards attends the Plenary Session: Girl, Uninterrupted: Increasing Opportunity During Adolescence at the Clinton Global Initiative September 20, 2016 in New York. (BRYAN R. SMITH/AFP/Getty Images)
Richards is being treated for her cancer via twice-weekly infusions through a clinical trial: “I’m good with it. It’s totally manageable, but these things are unpredictable. So I feel like it has helped me focus on what I want to do with the time I have. And I’m excited. I’ve been blessed.”
Read the New York interview in full here