New Jersey abortion clinic counselor Emily Letts uploaded a video to YouTube last month that filmed her before, during, and after having a surgical abortion.
Letts, 25, said that while she was waiting for the date of her procedure, she realized she wanted to share her abortion with the world.
"I thought, 'Wait a minute, I have to use this,'" she wrote in an article for Cosmopolitan.
The Cherry Hill Women's Center employee said that she became pregnant in November after having unprotected sex. Immediately after discovering her pregnancy, she decided to have an abortion.
"I knew I wasn't ready to take care of a child," Letts wrote. "The guy wasn't involved in my decision. I called my supervisor and said, 'Excuse me, I am going to need to schedule one abortion, please.' It was very early in the pregnancy, only two to three weeks."
After trying and failing to find surgical abortion videos online, Letts decided to make her own.
She also chose to forego RU-486, the abortion pill, in favor of the surgical procedure.
"I wanted to do the one that women were most afraid of," she said. "I wanted to show it wasn't scary - and that there is such a thing as a positive abortion story. It's my story."
Letts submitted her video to the Abortion Care Network's "Abortion Stigma-Busting Video Competition" in March, and won. Last month, she put the video on YouTube, and it has received over 80,000 views.
The video, which is nearly three and a half minutes, shows Letts breathing deeply and humming to relax herself on the gurney. After the brief procedure, she says, "Yay, cool. I feel good," then screams, "I'm done! Yay!"
Six weeks after the procedure, Letts tells the camera that she does not regret her decision.
"I don't feel like a bad person. I don't feel sad," she said. "I feel in awe of the fact that I can make a baby. I can make a life."
