Amanda Spriggs Reid

The Project

Amanda’s (she/her/hers) project will advocate for abortion access for disabled people through impact litigation, technical guidance on disability rights for abortion care professionals, and education outreach on reproductive rights.

Disabled people will experience the harshest outcomes resulting from the end of constitutionally protected right to abortion following the overruling of Dobbs and the subsequent wave of state laws restricting access to abortion. One analysis found that abortion bans in 26 states that are certain or highly likely to ban abortion could affect up to 2.8 million women with disabilities. Disabled people have an equal likelihood of becoming pregnant as nondisabled people yet they have significantly higher health risks while pregnant and are significantly less likely to have access to basic reproductive healthcare. As the abortion landscape is changing rapidly state-by-state, it is imperative that both abortion access advocacy and strategies include disabled people in impactful way.

After seeing several of her family members experience barriers due to disabilities, Amanda decided to focus her career on disability justice and combine it with her passion for reproductive justice.

Fellowship Plans

During her Fellowship, Amanda will collaborate on amicus briefs to highlight issues that particularly impact disabled people in environments that restrict access to abortion, such as lack of accessible travel for disabled people seeking abortions. She also will create guidance on providing access to abortion healthcare based in disability rights for both abortion providers and abortion funds with feedback from disability self-advocates. Additionally, she will seek to build coalitions between the reproductive justice and disability justice movements to yeild a more intersectional and inclusive movement for abortion rights.