Since Dobbs, 'Grey's Anatomy' Has Built Northwest Abortion Politics Into Its Storylines. They're Surprisingly Accurate.

by Megan Burbank

When a Bay Area reproductive health policy think tank released its annual breakdown of abortion storylines that aired on TV last year, one show came up again and again: Grey's Anatomy, which in its 19th season has not only turned into a maximalist show (there's now an ensemble cast of what feels like 20 named characters) but also started incorporating post-Roe Northwest abortion politics into its storylines — with surprising realism.

I wasn't surprised that a show from Shonda Rhimes depicts abortion with sensitivity — she's known for that. I was surprised that a show set in Seattle but filmed in Vancouver and LA was handling abortion policy in a way that felt geographically specific. But that's exactly what I found when I dug into the episodes cited in "Abortion Onscreen," an annual report on abortion storylines on scripted and reality television tracked by Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health.

I've already covered one of these episodes, "When I Get to the Border," because a source in reproductive health sent it my way back when it first aired in 2023, expressing deep-seated surprise that a dynamic specific to the Pacific Northwest — the bright ideological divide between Idaho and Washington State that brings patients west for care across the border — had become fodder for the most miraculously resilient medical drama on TV.

Turns out that episode was just the beginning of the show's inventive post-Roe storylines, which build in an entire arc about clinic harassment. The 19th season also includes an on-screen abortion almost in real-time: In the episode "All Star," a pregnant patient who already has two children presents with bleeding. She's fine, but she reveals to intern Jules that her pregnancy was accidental and that she had terrible postpartum depression with her previous pregnancies, and wants a termination. "I love my kids. I want to stay alive for them," she says. "I want to be okay for them. I can't do this again."

The intern and OB/GYN Jo arrange for her in-clinic abortion, which is shown on-screen, with Jo narrating what she's doing as the procedure progresses. It's over quickly, in what turns out to be the only case in the episode that's resolved simply. "That's it," says Jo as she concludes the quick procedure. "That's it?" says the patient in surprise.

As a reproductive health policy reporter, this storyline felt real to me, because most people who have abortions do already have children, and an early in-clinic abortion is typically short and uncomplicated. Many storylines make abortion more dramatic than it is in reality, but the patient's arc in "All Star" felt true to life in how unremarkable it was — especially juxtaposed with other cases on a show that's often about remarkably rare, complicated medical problems.

Season 19 also takes on the challenges of being an abortion provider. When Dr. Addison Montgomery starts providing care on a mobile unit she takes into abortion-hostile parts of the country, it makes her a target for both adoration and harassment. In the episode "Training Day," this dynamic is explored in depth when she comes to Seattle Grace Mercy West Hospital (this is the hospital's newest name; it changes several times over the course of the show for chaotic reasons) to provide abortion training to OB/GYN residents traveling to Seattle from states where abortion is illegal. When intern Mika complains to a coworker that it isn't fair out-of-state residents get to work with Addison, her coworker responds by saying "Well, neither is having to go to another state to get fully trained in your specialty." This is something that could've come directly from a news report, as abortion training has been a major casualty amid abortion bans, and was already limited before Roe was overturned, making states like Washington into havens for abortion training.

There are numerous other storylines that touch upon abortion throughout the season, including one in which a woman comes to the hospital for an abortion with her pregnant best friend, who ends up delivering her baby the same day. Her doctors go from dispensing mifepristone to catching a newborn, in a one-episode reminder that abortion is part of a broad spectrum of reproductive health care providers can perform.

But the most effective moment in this season comes in "Gunpowder and Lead," after the harassment arc concludes a little too neatly, with hospital staff pitching in to call Bailey's harassers directly in an improbably successful effort to remind them that she's human. Given what I know about right-wing anti-abortion terrorism, this is pure fiction, but after dragging Bailey through hell across several episodes, it's a relief nonetheless.

The biggest comes later, after Addison, who shows up to the hospital on the pretext of supplying her mobile unit, reveals to Bailey that she really just wanted to check in on her. She reveals this information while poised over a box of medication. The camera flashes across it so quickly it's hard to see what's inside, but I knew the label when I saw it, and when I hit pause, there it was: the abortion medication mifepristone, framed like any other drug that shows up in the background on a TV show set in a hospital.

Grey's Anatomy is a wild show, maximalist in the trauma it depicts. With plane crashes and shootings and medical gore and love triangles and emotional spiraling and medical anomalies, it's fearless to the point of goofy in its willingness to go there. But in a political climate that's enabled constant attacks on mifepristone, treating the pills as ordinary, essential supplies may be the most subversive storytelling choice the show has ever made.

📸 Featured Image: The "Grey's Anatomy" Season 19 cast at the 2023 PaleyFest at the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles, California, on April 2, 2023. Photo via Kathy Hutchins/Shutterstock.com