Amanda Cappelletti named finalist for EMILYs List’s 2025 Gabrielle Giffords Rising Star Award

Pennsylvania State Sen. Amanda Cappelletti is one of six finalists for EMILYs List’s 2025 Gabrielle Giffords Rising Star Award. Cappelletti has advocated for expanding reproductive healthcare after sharing stories about her miscarriages. 

Becoming the first woman to give birth to a child while serving in the Pennsylvania Senate has come with many challenges for State Sen. Amanda Cappelletti.

Cappelletti, who was named a finalist on Monday for EMILYs List’s 2025 Gabrielle Giffords Rising Star Award, gave birth to her daughter in March 2023, and during a recent interview, she shed some light on her experiences since then. 

“ Senator Tina Tartaglione pulled me aside after I announced it and said, ‘do you know you’re the first?’ That to me was wild that we still had that glass ceiling,” Cappelletti recalled. 

“It’s interesting because my colleagues have been incredibly supportive, providing me a certain level of flexibility that I really am fighting for all people to have in their jobs. Even though they’re not passing policies that actually provide that for people.” 

Prior to getting elected to the Pennsylvania Senate in 2020, Cappelletti worked for former Gov. Tom Wolf and served as the Director of Policy with Planned Parenthood of Pennsylvania. During her time in the Senate, Cappelletti has worked to expand reproductive rights and healthcare as co-chair of the Pennsylvania Women’s Health Caucus. 

Every year, EMILYs List, an organization dedicated to electing pro-choice women, nominates women serving in state or local offices who demonstrate a commitment to community, dedication to women and families, and determination and civility in honor of former US Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was almost killed during a shooting in Tuscon, Az. in 2011. 

Cappelletti is one of six finalists being honored this year and community members will have the opportunity to vote for her in an online poll. Previous recipients of the Rising Star Award include former Georgia House Minority Leader Stacy Abrams, US Rep. Ayanna Pressley, and former Philadelphia City Councilmember Helen Gym. 

“At a time when our country needs bold leaders in the fight for the future of this nation — state Sen. Amanda Cappelletti has been on the frontlines,” EMILYs List President Jessica Mackler said in a statement.

“She is a champion for reproductive freedom, using her own experiences to highlight the danger of government interference in our health care decisions and has fought to protect Pennsylvanians — from working to safeguard voting rights to pushing for affordable and accessible health care for working families.”

Throughout her time in office, Cappelletti has shared her personal struggles experiencing three miscarriages, with her most recent miscarriage happening days before the 2024 election. In each of those instances, she needed to have an abortion in order to protect her health. 

Cappelletti spoke on the floor of the Pennsylvania Senate in 2021 to recognize October as Pregnancy and Infancy Loss Awareness Month, and shared with her colleagues that she suffered back to back miscarriages. 

“ I didn’t know I was going to be so open about my journey to parenthood when we started it. I also didn’t know it was going to look like this,” Cappelletti said during the interview. 

”I felt compelled to share in the hopes of achieving a couple of different things.  The first was that the people of Pennsylvania know that there’s somebody in the legislature who has been through what they’ve been through and is thinking about them when developing policies. And that second piece is, I’ve come up with legislation to provide paid leave for pregnancy loss.  I think that that is critical because most people don’t understand or we don’t talk about what pregnancy loss looks like.”