Alyssa Basmajian
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About Alyssa
Alyssa Basmajian is a medical anthropologist who studies the social and political tensions surrounding reproductive health. Basmajian’s current book project, The Politics of Abortion Care in Ohio, is based on 16 months of ethnographic fieldwork before and after the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022) Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade (1973) and the legal right to abortion. She examines the politics of abortion care from within the walls of clinics to the politically heated Ohio state legislature with special attention to how gendered state-violence unfolds in the everyday attempt to provide reproductive health care.
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Coins the term “reproductive gerrymandering” to explore how, in the contemporary American political landscape, gerrymandering and the passage of anti-abortion legislation are intimately connected. Develops this concept as an analytic tool to understand the disjuncture between the passage of laws restricting reproductive healthcare access and the will of the majority of voters.
Maps out the barriers and possibilities for mobile phone health programs in Rakai, Uganda.
Describes how abortion doulas strive to move beyond the highly polarizing rhetoric of pro-choice and pro-life narratives.