Misinformation and disinformation (MDI) about contraception, abortion, and sexual health are spreading rapidly online, fueling harmful policies, and leaving people without the accurate information they need to make informed decisions about their own health and bodies.
Power to Decide launched a comprehensive initiative to directly confront MDI. Our goals were:
Our own YouR HeAlth (Youth Reproductive Health Access) survey showed that while 83.4% of young people trust health care providers a lot, only 20% trust social media information, yet social media remains a primary channel through which reproductive health myths spread and take hold. The same data found that roughly one-quarter of young people lack sufficient information to decide whether birth control is right for them, and about one-third don't have enough information to choose the right method.
Power to Decide is at the forefront of this fight, and the continued spread of evidence and science-based facts is more important than ever.
Power to Decide recognized that combating reproductive health MDI requires intervention across every layer of the information ecosystem, not just where myths appear, but where they are created, amplified, and institutionalized. Our strategy includes coordinated action across six channels.
Social Media: Across Bedsider and AbortionFinder's TikTok and Instagram channels, we produce engaging, evidence-based short-form content that directly confronts the most viral myths — including that birth control causes infertility, that hormonal contraception is unsafe, and that emergency contraception is the same as abortion. Rather than reactive fact-checking alone, we proactively meet audiences where they already scroll, using trending sounds and formats that ensure accurate information is shareable and sticky.
Entertainment Media: We embed accurate reproductive health information into popular culture by partnering with television, film, and digital media producers behind the scenes. We provide research, expert guidance, and story consultation to ensure that storylines about sex, relationships, and reproductive health reflect medical reality and spark informed conversations at scale.
Health Care Providers: Through Bedsider Providers, we equip clinicians with timely scripts, talking points, and clinical insights tailored to the viral myths their patients are encountering online. By tracking social media trends in real time and translating them into actionable guidance, we transformed the exam room into a frontline intervention point against MDI.
Policymakers and Advocates: We convene briefings, share emerging MDI trend reports, and provide medically accurate resources to federal and state decision-makers to ensure that legislation around contraception and reproductive health is grounded in science rather than myths.
Journalism: In partnership with media outlets, our team gives reporters the clear, science-based standards and terminology needed to cover pregnancy, contraception, and abortion accurately and responsibly, preventing MDI from entering the mainstream news cycle.
Campus Communities: Through Beyond the Sheets, our student-led movement on HBCU campuses, we shift power to young people themselves by supporting them in designing and executing place-based engagement strategies that spread medically accurate sexual and reproductive health information across their campuses and surrounding communities while building trust.
Bedsider: As an information and content hub for young adults, we serve as the resource to explore different birth control methods, find health care providers, and learn more about healthy sex and relationships. Giving young adults ownership over their sexual and reproductive health.
AbortionFinder: Access to providers that will treat you without judgement is pivotal. We help patients connect with care in their area that offers the full range of abortion services and health care resources they can trust.
Power to Decide's multi-platform MDI campaign generated measurable impact across digital reach, institutional influence, and community trust.
On social media, our fact-based content across Bedsider and AbortionFinder's TikTok and Instagram channels reached 71.6K people, with videos generating views, shares, and saves — a strong indicator that audiences are bookmarking accurate health information for future use.
Through Bedsider Providers, 676.6K views, health care professionals accessed updated talking points and clinical guidance on combating MDI in patient conversations, directly extending our reach into exam rooms nationwide.
Beyond the Sheets reached students on 5 HBCU campuses, with over a dozen student leaders trained. And more than 70% of students who participated in Beyond the Sheets reported feeling comfortable discussing sexual and reproductive health with the student ambassadors.
Most importantly, this work contributes to a future where misinformation no longer goes unanswered at the clinical, cultural, legislative, and community levels—and where every person has access to the accurate information they need to make decisions about their own reproductive health.
