"I'm doing this to demystify abortion."

Shakers KarateMonkey and Leah emailed me about Angie the Anti-Theist, a blogger whose birth control failed, resulting in a pregnancy which she decided to terminate. And she decided to use the occasion of her abortion to talk about it, via Twitter and YouTube. "I'm doing this to demystify abortion," she explains. "I just wanna let everybody know that you, too, can have an abortion, if you want one."

[Transcript below.]

Hi, YouTube. This is Angie the Antitheist. This is not a scripted video, so I apologize for the higher incidents of ums and you knows.

I found out about a week ago, Saturday, that I was pregnant. Um, for a variety of reasons, including, uh, very high health risks for me, I am having an abortion. Right now.

They have abortion by pill now—RU-486. I went to the doctor, Planned Parenthood, had blood tests and everything else done; they did a sonogram to check the state of my pregnancy; I'm at only four weeks, one—I was at only four weeks, one day, when I went into the office on Thursday. Um, they sent me home with some medicines; I've taken those. They take awhile to set in; I ended up actually going and getting a second dose, uh, but, uh, yeah, I'm having an abortion right now. It's not that bad. It's not that scary. It's basically like a miscarriage.

I'm live-tweeting my abortion on Twitter. Not for some publicity stunt, or attention, or to justify this to myself; I am at peace with my decision.

I'm doing this to demystify abortion. I'm doing this so that other women know, "Hey, it's not nearly as terrifying as I had myself worked up thinking it was." It's just not that bad.

This is nothing compared to childbirth. Compared to labor. Compared to, for me and my risks, late-stage pregnancy. This is the best choice. And it's not that bad. And I want people to know that it's out there, that, if you need this, there's non-surgical options available, especially in the earliest stage of pregnancy. Um, obviously, everybody use protection, uh, sometimes that doesn't work, and, when it doesn't, there's the morning-after pill, and, if you're not in time for that, there's RU-486.

So, I just wanna let everybody know that, uh, you, too, can have an abortion, if you want one. It's okay. It's not shameful. It's not secret. It's not killing a child. I have a little boy. You guys have seen him on my video channel. He is my world. I wanna stay alive and be his mom for a lot longer. So I'm having an abortion.