Brave Woman Films Her Abortion To Prove It’s No Big Deal
A 25-year-old abortion counselor thought of a way to reach out to women going through the experience of an abortion – she filmed hers. She wanted to think of a way to show women that the procedure is not the scary, horror-show popular culture sometimes makes it out to be. She’s right. An early surgical abortion is a simple out-patient procedure that women should not be afraid of.
When Emily Letts discovered she was pregnant – she knew she wasn’t ready for a child. At the same time, she realized she could use her experience to help other women going through the same thing – deciding how to end their pregnancies. In an essay she wrote for Cosmo she says:
Patients at the clinic always ask me if I can relate to them ”” have I had an abortion? Do I have kids? I was so used to saying, ”I’ve never had an abortion but”¦” While I was pregnant and waiting for my procedure, I thought, ”Wait a minute, I have to use this.”
Letts first considered writing a blog post about her experience, but after trying and failing to find a video of a surgical abortion online, she decided to film her own. There’s at least one video of a woman taking an abortion pill, but Letts wanted to reach out to women considering the surgical option. As an abortion counselor, she realized that many women consider this to be a scarier option.
I searched the Internet, and I couldn’t find a video of an actual surgical procedure in the clinic that focused on the woman’s experience. We talk about abortion so much and yet no one really knows what it actually looks like. A first trimester abortion takes three to five minutes. It is safer than giving birth. There is no cutting, and risk of infertility is less than 1 percent. Yet women come into the clinic all the time terrified that they are going to be cut open, convinced that they won’t be able to have kids after the abortion. The misinformation is amazing, but think about it: They are still willing to sacrifice these things because they know that they can’t carry the child at this moment.
She was inspired by the clip she did find of a woman who calls herself Angie AntiTheist on YouTube. She filmed herself after taking the abortion pill RU486 to show viewers that she was fine – that it wasn’t scary, didn’t hurt and that she was confident in her decision. Letts decided to perform the same service – to show women that surgical abortion at an early stage of pregnancy is a safe, quick procedure. Here is her video.
[vimeo video=”84797427″]
EMILY’S ABORTION VIDEO from Emily Letts on Vimeo
Good for her. There are so many stigmas around the procedure, anything that helps women feel better about their fundamental right to make medical decisions about their own bodies is okay by me.
(photo: Vimeo)
