According to Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood for over a decade, protesters who wave anti-abortion signs outside one of the organization’s clinics will sometimes return — a week, a month or a year later — for an annual medical exam.

The men in Washington, D.C., who have done battle with Ms. Richards (“and they’re almost always men”) don’t see that side of the organization, she said.

“For women, access to reproductive health care isn’t a political issue,” Ms. Richards said. “The women who walk into Planned Parenthood clinics come from every background, every political persuasion.”

Yes, she said, even women who support President Trump.

Now, as Mr. Trump’s administration tries to eliminate taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood, thrusting the debate over abortion rights back into the halls of Congress 45 years after the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision, Ms. Richards is stepping down, as first reported in BuzzFeed.