Side Effects

A groundbreaking and powerful investigation into how the fall of Roe changed American health care far beyond reproductive rights

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 Miranda Ollstein’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, Politico’s senior health care reporter and one of News Media Alliance’s “Rising Stars,” 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.

Side Effects also reveals how patients, physicians, researchers, and pharmacists are fighting back in unprecedented ways, upending both the political and medical landscape in the process. By investigating the erosion of abortion access as a health care crisis rather than a culture war, Ollstein sparks a desperately needed debate on what it means for a society to be “pro-life.”