Visible Voice books is excited to host writer Alice Miranda Ollstein on November 4th. Ollstein will be joined by Oberlin professor Steven Volk to discuss her new book Side Effects: How Abortion Bans Impact Everyone’s Health, a groundbreaking and powerful investigation into how the fall of Roe v. Wade changed American health care far beyond reproductive rights.
Ollstein 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 chronicles the experiences of real people who have 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.
Her 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.
This event is free and open to the public.
Alice Miranda Ollstein is a senior health care reporter for POLITICO, with a focus on health care in the states. Alice graduated from Oberlin College in 2010 and has been reporting in D.C. ever since, covering the Supreme Court, Congress and national elections for TV, radio, print, and online outlets. Her work has aired on Free Speech Radio News, All Things Considered, WAMU and WTOP, and her writing has been published by Talking Points Memo, The Atlantic, and La Opinión. She was elected in 2016 as an at-large board member of the DC Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. In 2017, she was named one of the New Media Alliance's "Rising Stars" under 30. She is the author of a forthcoming book on the broader health care impacts of post-Roe abortion restrictions, set to be published by The New Press.
Steven Volk is a Professor of History Emeritus at Oberlin College, where he taught Latin American history and museum studies for 30 years. Volk was named US Professor of the Year in 2011 by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, and was recognized by the Government of Chile in 2001 for his efforts in helping to restore democracy in that country.