Join Alice Miranda Ollstein '10 as she returns to campus to present her debut nonfiction book, Side Effects: How Abortion Bans Impact Everyone’s Health.
In the turbulent aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the loss of abortion access created ripple effects that washed over the entire U.S. health system, making care both less accessible and of lower quality for millions of people. Alice’s explosive reporting offers an urgent, on-the-ground look at a medical system under pressure, at the patients and providers caught up in the dragnet of the new abortion restrictions, and at the impacts on both reproductive care and completely unrelated services.
Ollstein, a senior health care reporter for Politico, spent years traveling around the country exploring the unexpected ways in which the Dobbs decision is disrupting the already fraught experience of pregnancy and birth, as physicians withhold or delay medically necessary procedures for fear of being prosecuted. A work of deep reporting and profound humanity, Side Effects also chronicles the experiences of real people who lost access to other forms of reproductive health care, including contraception and IVF, as well as those of all ages, genders, and geographic locations hit by the spillover effects to medical research, hospital staffing, wait times, management of chronic illnesses, and more.
In a chapter focused on the fight in Ohio in 2023 to pass a ballot measure protecting abortion rights and stop a six-week ban from taking effect, Side Effects also reveals how patients and physicians are fighting back in unprecedented ways, upending both the political and medical landscape in the process.
In addition to discussing the book, Alice will share her journey from the Oberlin Review to Washington, D.C., where she has spent the last 15 years working for an array of independent and mainstream news outlets amid a barrage of political and economic threats to the journalism field.
Side Effects will be available for sale at the event, courtesy of Mindfair Books, and Alice will be available for signing.
This event will be moderated by Sebastiaan Faber and is cosponsored by Latin American Studies, Politics, GSFS, Global Health, Journalism, and the CED.
