Improving reproductive health policy through intersectional advocacy
Abortion
Awarded 2024
Emerging Scholars in Family Planning
Anna Crawford, MA
University of Colorado Denver
$7,500

Anna is a Ph.D. candidate and research assistant with the Center for Policy and Democracy at the School of Public Affairs at the University of Colorado Denver (CU Denver). She was named a 2023-2024 Equity and Inclusion Fellow by the Association of Public Policy Analysis and Management. Her research agenda focuses on reproductive health policy, intersectionality, and democracy. With over a decade of advocacy experience—including roles as a community organizer and clinic escort with Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains and as a volunteer with both the Colorado Organization for Latina Opportunity and Reproductive Rights and Cobalt Advocates—Anna now sits on the board of directors for the Women’s Lobby of Colorado, a statewide coalition that seeks to advance gender equity through public policy. She earned her graduate certificate in public policy analysis from CU Denver, her M.A. in English from Penn State University, and her B.A. in English and Anthropology from Texas Tech University. Anna’s project examines the role of intersectionality in abortion policy advocacy with a focus on reproductive justice. Not only do marginalized communities disproportionately feel the policy effects of abortion regulations, but they also have an unequal voice in the policy processes that shape regulations. Social science research about advocacy coalitions within the policy process can provide insight into this problem. Through a series of semi-structured interviews with pro-abortion-access advocates in three states, she seeks to understand how intersectionality affects what advocates believe and how they behave, including whose voices they represent in policy debates.