A Conversation with Alice Miranda Ollstein: Side Effects: How Abortion Bans Impact Everyone’s Health
Thursday, November 12, 2026
5:00-6:30 PM
Amphitheater (4th Floor)
Rackham Graduate School (Horace H.)
Map
Join us for a conversation with Alice Miranda Ollstein, POLITICO’s senior health care reporter, about her new book, Side Effects: How Abortion Bans Impact Everyone’s Health, a groundbreaking investigation into how the overturning of Roe v. Wade has transformed American health care far beyond reproductive rights. Drawing on years of on-the-ground reporting, Ollstein examines how abortion restrictions have affected patients, physicians, and researchers across the country, creating barriers to medically necessary pregnancy care, fertility treatments, contraception, and other health services. Her reporting also reveals broader consequences for medical research, hospital staffing, wait times, and the treatment of chronic illnesses as health care providers navigate legal uncertainty and the threat of prosecution.
Through the experiences of patients and medical professionals, Side Effects reframes abortion bans as a public health crisis with consequences for people of all ages, genders, and geographic locations. Ollstein also explores how patients, physicians, pharmacists, and researchers are challenging these restrictions and working to protect access to care. The conversation will examine what these developments reveal about the intersection of health care, law, and politics—and what they mean for the future of American medicine.
The conversation will be moderated by Julie Rovner, chief Washington correspondent for KFF Health News and host of its What the Health? podcast. An accomplished journalist and author, Rovner has covered health policy for decades, reporting previously for National Public Radio, National Journal, Congressional Quarterly, and The Lancet. As Ollstein’s mentor, Rovner will bring her extensive expertise in health policy and journalism to a discussion of the far-reaching consequences of abortion restrictions and the future of reproductive health care in the United States.
Attendees will also have the opportunity to enter a book giveaway for Side Effects.
Through the experiences of patients and medical professionals, Side Effects reframes abortion bans as a public health crisis with consequences for people of all ages, genders, and geographic locations. Ollstein also explores how patients, physicians, pharmacists, and researchers are challenging these restrictions and working to protect access to care. The conversation will examine what these developments reveal about the intersection of health care, law, and politics—and what they mean for the future of American medicine.
The conversation will be moderated by Julie Rovner, chief Washington correspondent for KFF Health News and host of its What the Health? podcast. An accomplished journalist and author, Rovner has covered health policy for decades, reporting previously for National Public Radio, National Journal, Congressional Quarterly, and The Lancet. As Ollstein’s mentor, Rovner will bring her extensive expertise in health policy and journalism to a discussion of the far-reaching consequences of abortion restrictions and the future of reproductive health care in the United States.
Attendees will also have the opportunity to enter a book giveaway for Side Effects.
| Building: | Rackham Graduate School (Horace H.) |
|---|---|
| Website: | |
| Event Type: | Lecture / Discussion |
| Tags: | abortion, Activism, advocacy, Education, women, Women's And Gender Studies, women's health, women's rights, women's studies |
| Source: | Happening @ Michigan from Institute for Research on Women and Gender, Women's and Gender Studies Department |
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