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Anyone who has been moved by an episode of particularly powerful television knows that sometimes television’s impact isn’t just on the screen, sometimes television impacts real lives. 

At D23's Grey's Anatomy panel, Jo actor Camilla Luddington shared one particular storyline that she knew had an actual impact on the show's viewers.

“We had a standalone episode called ‘Silent All These Years’ that dealt with sexual assault and Jo meeting her mother," Luddington shared. "And that storyline is probably the one most people talk to me about.”

The 2019 episode featured Jo meeting her birth mother for the first time and learning that she was born after her mother was raped as a teenager. The episode also featured the doctors at the hospital treating a woman who had herself been assaulted.

Jason Winston George, who plays Ben on the show, shared that he felt strongly about his small role in the episode saying, “It was so meaningful to me to be an onscreen dad talking to his son about what consent means.”

But the episode wasn’t just powerful storytelling. Luddington continued, “I know that we had a real-world effect after that episode the calls to RAINN to report assault went up by like 40% in 48 hours,” a statistic shared by RAINN. 

You can learn more about the resources RAINN provides on their website.

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