Jillian MacLeod

Jillian MacLeod joined DREDF as a Ralph S. Abascal Memorial Fellow in September 2023. Her work focuses on ensuring that people with disabilities have equal access to reproductive healthcare in California.

Jillian’s interest in disability justice derives from her personal experiences with family members with disabilities. After many years of helping her loved ones navigate access barriers in many facets of their lives, she decided to attend law school to ensure that the rights of people with disabilities are enforced and protected. She developed her fellowship project in the summer of 2022 after the United States Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson that stripped Americans of their right to an abortion. She recognized that before Dobbs, people with disabilities experienced significant barriers to accessing reproductive healthcare and sexual education, and that the Dobbs ruling would greatly exacerbate these barriers to access. In response, she developed a project with DREDF that seeks to ensure that all people with disabilities have equal access to reproductive health services in California through education, outreach, and legal advocacy.

Jillian received her undergraduate degree in Political Science with a Minor in Feminist Studies from UC Santa Barbara. She attended law school at UC Law, San Francisco (formerly UC Hastings College of the Law) and graduated magna cum laude with a Concentration in Social Justice Lawyering. She looks forward to working with and advocating on behalf of people with disabilities to ensure that they have equal access to reproductive healthcare and are empowered to make self-determined decisions about their futures.