We Heart: Viral TikTok Dissects (Painfully Realistic) Crisis Pregnancy Center Scene in ABC’s ‘Station 19’
In an era where crisis pregnancy centers outnumber real abortion clinics three to one, raising the alarm about these fake clinics is crucial.
A new TikTok video from Bedsider—an online birth control support network for women 18-29 operated by Power to Decide—recently went viral for doing just that, spreading the word about the dangers of antiabortion “clinics.”
Crisis pregnancy centers, or CPCs, are unregulated pregnancy centers run and staffed by antiabortion groups. The staff—rarely medical professionals—advertise with billboards and online ads offering services like free ultrasounds, but spread false information with the goal of keeping women from accessing abortion care.
The TikTok starts with a clip from the ABC show Station 19’s Season 6 Episode 13 in a crossover with Grey’s Anatomy. The scene, set in a CPC, highlights many of the all-too-common strategies CPCs use to trap and mislead patients. In the clip, a woman in a white doctor’s coat tells a patient to call her “Nancy” because “Doctor” is too formal—the first sign that she has no medical training and is not a licensed professional. When the patient’s friend asks how far along the pregnancy is, Nancy says, “It’s hard to be exact.”
When the patient tells Nancy she wants to get an abortion, Nancy tells her that abortions lead to higher rates of breast cancer—a complete lie that offers an example of how CPCs give women blatantly false information to dissuade them from seeking abortions. After numerous studies, the American Cancer Society has found no link between abortion and breast cancer (or any other kind).
After the clip ends, the TikTok cuts to Cat McKay, PTD’s senior manager of social media and campaigns, who explains how fake clinics differ from legitimate reproductive healthcare clinics: “Their real goal is to dissuade people from getting abortions by using inaccurate information and straight-up lies.” While CPCs are rampant across the country—sometimes setting up shop right next to real abortion clinics to try to trick patients—patients can use the AbortionFinder database to find real, medically licensed clinics near them.
The TikTok currently has more than 227K likes, and the 600+ comments include many stories from people who were targeted by CPCs themselves.
“We absolutely love when TV shows get real like this,” McKay said. “These are the types of stories that we all need to be talking about right now.”
