By Nicquel Terry Ellis and Michelle Krupa

(CNN) — Cecile Richards, a women’s rights crusader who served as president of Planned Parenthood as the nation approached a critical inflection point over reproductive freedom, has died, her family said Monday in a statement. She was 67.

“This morning our beloved Cecile passed away at home, surrounded by her family and her ever-loyal dog, Ollie. Our hearts are broken today but no words can do justice to the joy she brought to our lives,” it read.

Richards died just hours before President Donald Trump was sworn in to a second term as president.

Richards’ family was “grateful to the doctors and health care workers who provided her excellent care and the friends, family, and well-wishers who have been by her side during this challenging time,” it said.

While Richards’ family did not disclose her cause of death in the statement, Richards spoke openly with CNN’s Anderson Cooper last June about her battle with glioblastoma– an aggressive type of brain cancer that is incurable and has a survival rate of 12 to 18 months.

“There’s been highs and lows, but I feel really fortunate to have health care that is first class living in New York City,” Richards told CNN’s Anderson Cooper. “It’s made me appreciate how much all people need health care.”

Richards served as president of Planned Parenthood from 2006 to 2018, helping boost the profile of an organization long criticized by conservatives and anti-abortion activists who have called on the government to strip its funding. With nearly 600 health centers, Planned Parenthood bills itself as the nation’s leading provider and advocate of high-quality, affordable sexual and reproductive health care and its largest provider of sex education.

“Together, we have made real progress in this country, expanding access to services and making reproductive rights a central priority of our nation’s health care system,” Richards said in January 2018 when she announced she was stepping down. “I’m deeply proud of the progress we’ve made for the millions of people Planned Parenthood health centers serve across the country each year.”

Planned Parenthood Federation of America and Planned Parenthood Action Fund are “heartbroken to lose a giant in the fight for reproductive freedom,” they said Monday in a statement.

“Cecile Richards was an indomitable force,” the groups said. “In her 12 devoted years of service to our organization, Cecile brought Planned Parenthood Federation of America to new heights in our health care, education, and advocacy work. She led us through fights that transformed the reproductive health and rights landscape and made Planned Parenthood Action Fund the advocacy and political force that it remains to this day.”

The women in Richards’ family were no strangers to political power: Her mother was the late Gov. Ann Richards of Texas and her daughter, Lily Adams, served as a political appointee in former President Joe Biden’s administration.

In one of his final presidential statements, Biden on Monday honored Cecile Richards, calling her a “leader of utmost character” and saying she “fought for the dignity of workers, defended and advanced women’s reproductive rights and equality.”

“Jill and I are deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Cecile Richards. Cecile fearlessly led us forward to be the America we say we are,” said Biden, who in a private ceremony in November awarded Richards the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

‘Visionary leadership, commitment to justice’

Richards’ tenure as Planned Parenthood’s president came with major shifts in the landscape of abortion rights in the United States.

Trump in his first term signed a bill in 2017 allowing states to withhold federal money from abortion services providers, including Planned Parenthood. Indeed, the first Trump administration was “the worst for women that I’ve seen in my lifetime,” Richards told CNN’s Van Jones the following year.

Later, the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, ending the constitutional right to an abortion and setting off a fierce fight for reproductive rights at the state level.

After leaving Planned Parenthood, Richards in 2019 partnered with Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza and Ai-jen Poo, director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, to launch a political action group called Supermajority focused on women’s activism and equality.

“I think women are just finally saying, ‘You know, if we’re the majority of the voters, we’re the majority of volunteers, of the activists, and work on every single issue. Why aren’t the things that we care about actually front and center in the political agenda?’” Richards told CNN.

Richards’ “visionary leadership, commitment to justice, and lifelong dedication to advancing the rights of women will forever inspire us,” Supermajority said Monday in a statement.

Richards also was a “fearless champion for abortion access and gender justice to the very end of her extraordinary life,” said National Women’s Law Center President and CEO Fatima Goss Graves.

“Cecile leaves behind a legacy of unshakable determination and a blueprint for how to advocate for the people and causes that need it most,” Graves said in a statement. “She made us better with her rigor, humor, and grace.”

This story has been updated with additional information.

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