Kerry Washington says Scandal abortion scene was 'cathartic' after her own experience with the pr...

The actress opened up about the abortion she got in her 20s in her 2023 memoir &34;Thicker Than Water.&34; Kerry Washington says Scandal abortion scene was 'cathartic' after her own experience with the procedure The actress opened up about the abortion she got in her 20s in her 2023 memoir &34;Thicker Than Water.&34; By Daysia Tolentino :maxbytes(150000):stripicc()/DaysiaTolentinoauthorphotob1c9bf2343cf4cf7b77759eeb9f69e8d.jpg) Daysia Tolentino Daysia Tolentino is a writer at . She has written for since 2025. Her work has appeared in NBC News, Vulture, GQ, and InStyle.

The actress opened up about the abortion she got in her 20s in her 2023 memoir "Thicker Than Water."

Kerry Washington says Scandal abortion scene was 'cathartic' after her own experience with the procedure

The actress opened up about the abortion she got in her 20s in her 2023 memoir "Thicker Than Water."

By Daysia Tolentino

Daysia Tolentino

Daysia Tolentino is a writer at *. *She has written for * *since 2025. Her work has appeared in NBC News, Vulture, GQ, and InStyle.

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March 19, 2026 4:11 p.m. ET

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Kerry Washington in 2025. Credit:

Stefanie Keenan/Getty

Kerry Washington opened up about her experience filming her groundbreaking abortion scene on *Scandal* after having the procedure done in her 20s.

Washington, 49, played the tough fixer and crisis communications expert Olivia Pope on the hit Shondaland political drama between 2012 and 2018. During the season 5 mid-season finale, "Baby It's Cold Outside," Olivia gets an abortion while Republican senator Mellie Grant (Bellamy Young) filibusters a bill that would slash Planned Parenthood funding.

The actress recalled how she felt acting out the abortion in an interview with *Call Her Daddy *on Wednesday. Host Alex Cooper asked Washington if it was "triggering" to simulate the experience as someone who had actually had the procedure.

"I don't think it was triggering to film it, Washington said. "I do think it was cathartic."

Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) received in an abortion in season 5 episode 9 'Baby, It's Cold Outside'.

Eric McCandless/ABC

The *Little Fires Everywhere* star said she was able to share her own truth through her character, even if people weren't aware that she herself had an abortion. Although she didn't go public with her experience until years later, she said she had "less to hide" and felt "a little bit healed" after the episode aired.

"I got to say this is something that happened to me," she said. "This is something that I chose. This is something that I've lived through and I'm not going to hide it anymore. Even though I was hiding it like on some like deeper emotional level, I was able to say like, I'm going to step into the truth of this moment and share it with all of you."

The *Imperfect Women *actress said that she had worked in sex education and advocated for reproductive rights for years. She wrote about her experience getting an abortion in her 20s in her 2023 memoir *Thicker Than Water*, although she has said she was hesitant to include this story at first.

"Having some distance from it, rereading it, I thought, I want to share this," she told *Call Her Daddy*. "I do want to share this because a lot of what my abortion story is about is my personal loss of privacy. And it is our right to privacy that has been taken away from us. That is how *Roe v. Wade* got reversed. I just think I'm not a bad person because I've had an abortion, and you get to disagree."

Kerry Washington as Olivia Pope on 'Scandal'.

Kevin Estrada/ABC

While she respects those who disagree with her decisions, Washington emphasized the importance of women having the right to choose and have bodily autonomy. She said that she struggled with shame over getting pregnant at the time.

"It really invited me to figure out how to stand up for myself and my boundaries more, how to be more honest with myself in the moment, and how to stay in my body," she said.

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The *Scandal* abortion scene enraged conservative groups when it aired in 2015. Media Research Center, a conservative media watchdog, called the inclusion of the procedure "Hollywood's moral depravity on full display" at the time.

Showrunner Shonda Rhimes previously shared that the reactions to the scene, despite the network ABC's hesitations, weren't very negative.

"When that episode came out, I thought the reaction was going to be so much stronger… which is always awesome when it's not," Rhimes explained of the moment in 2016. "Because the fans are always much more enlightened than, you know, the studio lawyers are."

Check out the full episode of *Call Her Daddy *with Kerry Washington below.

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Source: Drama

Published: March 19, 2026 at 04:57PM on Source: PRIME TIME

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