Cecile Richards Will Not Be Running For Office, But She's Still Got Political Plans

Cecile Richards announced on Wednesday that she would be stepping down as president of Planned Parenthood—and was immediately inundated with requests that she run for political office office immediately.

In a new profile with the New York Times, Richards states clearly, “I’m not thinking of running for anything.”

But she does seem delighted to be taking on new challenges, like releasing her well-timed memoir, Make Trouble: Standing Up, Speaking Out, and Finding the Courage to Lead—My Life Story, out in April. Richards will also continue to make trouble in the midterm elections—for Republicans. She says she’ll be working on fundraising and campaign efforts for Democratic candidates, especially the record number of women candidates who have stepped up to run this year.

Richards certainly has the know-how for fundraising. Since joining Planned Parenthood in 2006, the organization has increased its volunteers and membership numbers from 2.5 million to 11 million. Since the presidential election of 2016, they’ve brought in 700,000 new donors, which is a record number for that time period.

You’d think after being under years of attack from anti-abortion groups and a president who doesn’t seem to understand the very concept of birth, Richards would want to retreat from public service entirely, but she definitely seems to be someone with a knack for seeing the positive in it all:

“For every person who has come up and said something tacky—as Mom would say—there are literally hundreds of women who have stopped me in the subway, on the street, in an airport to say, ‘thank you,’” she said.