Cecile Richards doesn't have the dairy-whip hair, the Texas twang or the shoot-from-the-lip style that made her mother, Ann, a Texas icon. With her close-cropped locks, refined manner and tempered speech, she seems more Ivy League than down-home.

It's a determination that the daughter of the former Texas governor will need as the new national president of Planned Parenthood, the country's largest provider of women's health care and one of the most powerful voices in the debate over reproductive rights.

Ms. Richards takes the helm as abortion, birth control and sex education continue to face vitriolic attack from opponents who equate abortion to murder and demonize groups that support reproductive rights.

Two weeks into the job, with an abortion case pending before the U.S. Supreme Court and a recent decision in South Dakota to ban most abortions, Ms. Richards seemed undaunted by the fight on her hands. Issues include pharmacists who refuse to fill birth control prescriptions, limited access to emergency contraception and comprehensive sex education when many officials prefer an abstinence approach.

Cecile Richards, 48, says she relies on her family, faith and inner strength to get through the tough times and insists she had no qualms about taking the high-profile job.

"This has just been a gift," she said, displaying the idealistic streak she's had since childhood, when she pushed the family to recycle and protested the war in Vietnam.

As Planned Parenthood celebrates its 90th birthday, Ms. Richards said her goal is simple: to make sure it is the "premier women's health care provider."

"When they turn 100 in 10 years, I want women and families to be able to access safe, affordable community-based health care in every state in this country," she said.

"Just about everything they do, we object to," said Jim Sedlak, vice president of American Life League, one of the largest anti-abortion organizations in the country. The league's project STOPP is specifically devoted to "defeating Planned Parenthood."

Planned Parenthood, founded in 1916 by nurse Margaret Sanger, masquerades as a health care provider, Mr. Sedlak said. But through its services, he said, it's "pushing sexualization of young people."

Ann Richards disagrees: "You don't have to have a background in health care to know the birthing of babies, or not, is a health care issue for women."

Her daughter has a similar response: "I'd say folks from the other side have really tried to politicize what are basic health care services. That's the business we're in."

In conversation, Ms. Richards seems careful to stick closely to Planned Parenthood's mission of women's health, seldom using the word abortion. But she is adamant that birth control and abortion are health issues that should be decided by a woman and her doctor. "No politician can put themselves in the shoes of women who need to make those decisions."

She challenges those who criticize Planned Parenthood for providing abortions to help offer family-planning services. "We would love to have their help in making sure that any woman in America who needs access to family planning can get it, because that is simply the most effective way to reduce unwanted pregnancies."

Though Planned Parenthood faces numerous challenges, Ms. Richards declined to prioritize them. But she seems less concerned over an increasingly conservative U.S. Supreme Court than with the direction of state legislatures.

"No one gets up every morning and thinks about the Supreme Court," she said. "But everybody has a legislature, and everybody knows that legislature has an enormous impact on every aspect of our lives."

Since the vote in South Dakota, she said: "We have had phone calls from women and families from all across the country saying, 'If the South Dakota Legislature can do this, then they can do it in my state. So how can I get involved? And what can I do?' I think it's been an enormous wake-up call."

James Roderick, president of Planned Parenthood of North Texas, said in a statement that he was thrilled by Ms. Richards' appointment. "She has a long history of coalition building."

The North Texas affiliate is one of the largest and fastest-growing in the country, with 28 clinics serving more than 87,000 clients in 57 counties in 2005.

After her parents moved her and her three siblings from Dallas to Austin, she took up their interests, serving as a Senate page and helping lawyer Sarah Weddington's legislative campaign.

Ms. Weddington won Roe vs. Wade, the historic Supreme Court case that legalized abortion. Ms. Richards said that she hadn't thought about the connection to Ms. Weddington in years but that her belief in reproductive rights was more a product of growing up in the 1960s and '70s.

The growth of the civil rights and women's movements and the end of the Vietnam War "was a period of time in which we were all taught to believe we could change the world," she said.

After graduating from a private school in Austin, Ms. Richards earned a degree in history from Brown University in Rhode Island. Even there, she was an organizer, supporting a janitors' movement for better work conditions."I had lived a very privileged life. I had an education that very few, very few people are so fortunate to get, and what was I going to give back?" she asked.

Her answer was to become a professional organizer, working to unionize garment workers in South Texas, nursing home workers in East Texas and hotel employees in New Orleans.

In 1982, she married fellow labor organizer Kirk Adams. They have three children, including daughter Lily, whom many remember as the young girl mentioned in Ann Richards' 1988 address to the Democratic National Convention. Lily is now a freshman in college.

Friends and family describe her as a ferocious mother. "Cecile will not ask anything for herself," Ann Richards said, "but everything for her children."

Cecile Richards said that being the mother of three teenagers makes her feel even more strongly about Planned Parenthood. "I can't imagine that my children would have fewer rights and less access to the safest, best health care."

When her mother was defeated for re-election in 1994 by George W. Bush, Ms. Richards started Texas Freedom Network to counter what she saw as the negative effect of the religious right.

"For some, religion was sort of a blunt instrument that was used to beat up on other people who didn't agree with folks one way or the other," she said.

For her, religion is a motivator "to take on things that are wrong," said J. Charles Merrill, former senior pastor at University United Methodist Church in Austin, where Ms. Richards attended services.

She is grateful that her work with the Texas Freedom Network, and a subsidiary, the Texas Faith Network, a group of religious leaders dedicated to "politics of community and compassion," put her more in touch with her "personal faith beliefs."

No matter what she does, Cecile Richards will always be known in Texas as the former governor's daughter. The two women are close, and that closeness will be needed as the family faces Ann Richards' recent cancer diagnosis.

There, she worked with media mogul Ted Turner's private foundation, focusing on reproductive rights. She then joined the staff of Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. In 2003, she helped start America Votes, a nonpartisan group dedicated to increasing voter participation. The group has brought together influential organizations, including Emily's List, the Sierra Club and Planned Parenthood.

Ms. Richards said her appointment to head Planned Parenthood feels like coming home. Reproductive rights has been "one of the most fundamental issues that I feel strongly about," she said.

But coming home doesn't mean following in her mother's political footsteps - even though some Democrats, including Mom, have encouraged her to do so.

Everyone has to decide how to make a contribution to society, she said. "I like to work with people to build organizations. I think that's my calling."

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