Angie Jackson's Abortion On Twitter: Woman Live-Tweets Her Miscarriage (VIDEO)

*See video below*

Florida resident Angie Jackson, known on her blog as Angie the Anti-Theist, rocked the blogosphere on February 22 when she decided to live-tweet her abortion in order to 'demystify abortions for other women.'

Right after taking RU-486, a pill that induces miscarriage, Angie started the cameras rolling, creating a YouTube video that was recorded during the abortion itself and included a justification of her decision.

She says,

For a variety of reasons, including very high health risks for me, I am having an abortion. Right now. [...] But yeah I'm having an abortion right now. It's not that bad, it's not that scary, it's basically like a miscarriage.

Angie explains her decision in the YouTube video (see below):

I'm live tweeting my abortion on Twitter--not for some publicity stunt or for 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, or, for me and my risks, late stage pregnancy.

She live-tweeted her abortion from @AntiTheistAngie and created the hashtag '#livetweetingabortion' for people who wanted to 'follow things in real time or read my hatemail after the fact.'

From her Twitter account, she tweeted details such as 'Cramps are getting a bit more persistant,' 'Definitely bleeding now,' and 'I'm so fucking wiped. Having trouble sleeping obviously. Just took 2 more ibuprofin. Started bleeding a LOT more today.'

In an Q&A with TheFrisky.com, Angie spoke openly about being sexually abused as a child. Doctors told her she would never have children because of the injuries she sustained from the abuse, so her first pregnancy was a 'surprise' but a medically complicated one.

Worried about her health and her young son (who's four years old), she decided she would have no more children. But, despite using birth control, she and her boyfriend found themselves facing another potentially dangerous pregnancy.

Angie explained to The Frisky,

I was relieved to find out that I had this non-surgical option [the abortion pill] and that I was early enough [in my pregnancy] to get it. I was so relieved to see how simple it's been. The actual process has been like a menstrual period. It's not foreign or scary.

She went on to say:

I grew up in a very fundamentalist Christian home and there's a lot of misinformation and lies [about abortion]. They do attempt to terrify women. They try to make abortion sound so scary that women are too terrified to do it. And that's really what I wanted to say, from my personal experience, this was not as bad as labor and birth.

The blogger is not the first woman to post details about a miscarriage on Twitter. Penelope Trunk live-tweeted her own miscarriage, writing, 'I'm in a board meeting. Having a miscarriage. Thank goodness, because there's a fucked-up 3-week hoop-jump to have an abortion in Wisconsin.'

Both Trunk and Jackson have caused quite a furor with their outspoken stances about abortion. Jackson herself says she is 'astonished' by the backlash, but, as she asserts in her YouTube video, 'I am not ashamed.'

WATCH:

Comments

[Nelle-Yecats]

02:43 PM on 03/08/2010

Any woman who has an abortion or a miscarriage does not think lightly of the process. I am 47. When I was 21, I had an abortion in 1984. Since then, I have had 3 children. My first pregnancy in 1990, I had gestational diabetes & I was in labor for over 48 hours & on an epidural block w/pitocin & a catheter. I pushed 2 hours. The baby was taken by forceps, leaving bruising on his face for weeks. In 1993, I had my 2nd child. I gave birth naturally. Had I decided to abort because of my labor experience w/my first child, I would have never had 2 other children. When I was age 43, I had my last child. I had gestational diabetes during my last pregnancy. My baby girl was born on her due date happy & healthy. Since then, I have had a few miscarriages, 1 of which I had a D & C. I was 3 months along when I miscarried. I would have another child despite the risks. I cannot agree w/Angie & her sharing on-line w/the world about her decision to abort. I do not talk about my abortion & miscarriages much to anyone. It is painful. I carry it all close to my soul. Angie really did not know how this pregnancy would be. A doctor cannot predict the outcome of each & every pregnancy. If it were me, I would have continued w/ the pregnancy because life is worth the

[skunky93]

09:09 AM on 03/02/2010

It's only gross in the the face of societal expectations of privacy and niceties. Besides that, I support free choice and I don't give a flying f**k what any pro lifer says bc every person in this life is handed a different set of situations. People have to make decisions based on what is right for them. The lady with health conditions who could get worse or deform a child bc of necessary meds to the woman who is raped and doesn't want that child to the person who has decided to not have a child simply because they don't feel ready. It's all our body, our choice. It's a very difficult decision to make for most women. The ones who use abortion like birth control disgust me too but it doesn't change the fact that it's their body, their choice.

[anothervoter]

12:56 AM on 03/02/2010

Her body.
Her choice.

Period.

[Dawn Gordon]

03:21 PM on 03/01/2010

it never ceases to amaze me that this woman is being written about all over the news, but a group of us trying to stop possible further suicides, since the suicide increases by about 400 percent when an abortion occurs are being neglected to speak about this matter?

on top of this she is following a 13 year old boy, and teaching minors about abortion, how to do it, drugs to use and so forth,

she also claims to have lost her IUD but does not speak about the string that the IUD has to check for its placement, she also blogged on a site that she pretended to herself about the condoms

I find it so back wards to focus on writng about a woman who does not care that little 13 year olds are reading her information, taking notes, and who knows sneaking around behind mom and dads back

when is the news people going to recognize the real heros in this story?

[johnr49]

05:01 PM on 03/01/2010

Have you ever considered the possible link to the higher suicide rate following abortion and the anti-abortion propaganda that talks about "murdering babies"?

[jessicadevyn]

06:34 PM on 03/01/2010

Please back up your statement that abortion causes a 400 increase in the probability of suicide. All literature I have read indicates giving live birth to cause many more psychological issues such as post partum depression and is physically far more dangerous to the woman than abortion . And men are nearly twice as likely to commit suicide compared to women even though pregnancy is impossible for them to achieve.

I never understood the "knowledge is dangerous and bad for minors to have". Minors should be informed about these topics as much as they can. This is even more true since we live in a society that never talks about sex or the consequences about sex unless itnis steeped into guilt ridden, religious terms, especially for the girls. As an undergrad I volunteered for my school's health center. I went to a good school and it was pathetic how little young men and women know about their bodies. My boyfriend was raised in Sweden which has world renown sex education and they don't have half the issues we do.

[Lulubelle1]

08:50 AM on 03/01/2010

Live-tweeting an abortion seems distasteful and tacky to me. There are other ways to "demystify" abortion and make the point that it's not dangerous, scary, or painful.

As for the larger point, women do have and should have the right to decide whether they will give birth, and that right extends not just to the point of conception, but to the point of viability. Pregnancy is just too big a commitment to force women to bear for nine months when she will incur long-lasting repercussions.

Perhaps one day it will be possible for those who oppose choice to adopt babies already in the womb, transferring those embryos and fetuses from one womb to another. But that isn't possible yet.

Those who are anti-abortion would be well-advised to work toward medical advances that would make that possible. Now, the pregnancies of other women are none of their business.

[Cryostatic]

07:25 AM on 03/01/2010

Sounds to me like somebody's trying for her fifteen minutes.

[johnr49]

04:06 PM on 03/01/2010

Sounds to me like somebody didn't bother reading the whole article.

[Krek]

04:11 PM on 03/01/2010

Exactly. Surely it's the first time ever that someone who is the subject of a story on HP has actually left comments on the thread that discusses the story about her. So she is clearly following the reporting of what she did while at the same time saying explicitly in her video that she didn't make a video for attention.

[Miriam Breslauer]

02:23 AM on 03/01/2010

As another woman with severe medical consequences if I got pregnant, I appreciate this open and honest video about abortion. I had forgotten that their were pills available in the early stages. The fear mongerers that are anti-abortion always bring up the partial birth abortion imagery when they talk about abortion. However, if I was stupid enough to let a pregnancy go until my third trimester there is a high chance that I would need a partial birth abortion to get the dead child out.

Not all women and all children can survive a pregnancy. This was horrifyingly made clear when a person I know with the same genetic illness as me went through hell with her pregnancy only to end up with a stillborn child. She wanted a baby greatly and accepted the risks and damage to her body (and possible death).

A woman is more than just a child incubator and I ask that people respect that.

[roshni]

02:51 PM on 03/01/2010

I am glad this woman is informing people of their options if they exercise the right to choose. There are fear mongers about.

[jessicadevyn]

06:59 PM on 03/01/2010

Thank you and fanned. I am a young woman with a possible heritable condition. I take half a dozen medications a day just to stay alive and function. I can live a normal life span with the meds. All these meds are known to cause birth defects in fetuses. If I would stop the medication I would have a good chance of being dead in a year. This isn't a woe is me story, these are simple, biological facts that I live with everyday. Yes I have tried to "get my tubes tied" but it has been impossible for me, as someone my age (24), with no children, to find a doctor that would do it.

Yet according to these "pro lifers" I'm selfish for wanting to live. I would get an abortion the second I knew I was pregnant. Yet according to people, many of whom can't get pregnant I should stop taking my medication if I were ever pregnant which would leave me disabled all for me to die in the end and most likely give birth to a dead or a deformed fetus because "life is so precious".

As someone from my position, (plus a minor in biology from an excellent university) I will use my judgement, the judgement of my doctor, and the law of the land to make my decision. Not these hypocrites who ultimately don't care at all about women and children. They just want to force women to give birth no matter what.

[ArtsyJane]

04:44 AM on 03/02/2010

There is no such thing as "pro-lifers". People who self-designate with that term are simply people who do not consider women as full citizens and who of course have no respect for them.

If they were anywhere near to be "pro-life", they would defend your life first.

In many underdeveloped countries, mostly of Catholic tradition, they tend to save the fetus, not the mother, whenever there is a condition which requires to save one versus the other. In Europe, there is a specific law on this very thing - the health and the life of the mother, by law, always, always comes first and supersedes completely the health and the life of the fetus. If they can save both, that's great. If they have to chose, they save the mother. But that's in Europe. Not so much in other places around the world.

[A Flock Of Budgies]

01:47 AM on 03/01/2010

Still cannot face the fact that my budgies are smarter than some of you people. Truth hurts I guess...

[truthiness091101]

12:46 AM on 03/01/2010

Thank you Angie. The Republithugs care NOTHING about women, their safety, or the lives of their children. If they did, they would be voting for National Health Care this minute. Dems are JUST AS BAD-they are excluding access to abortion and women's health care for the exact same PEOPLE. Women are the ones who bear the ENTIRE burden of having children, and a great deal of the burden of raising them. It's not like all women are saints-no one can claim that. But we have a society set to FAILURE for women who DO have their children-poverty, lack of nutrition, lower wages, discrimination, abuse. The atmosphere is SO TOXIC. My sister is a single mother and if we did not have generous parents, she would have been on the street long ago, WITH HER SON, who is a genius. HOW MANY GENIUS CHILDREN HAVE DIED due to our unfair, discriminatory policies??? Welfare to work? Who takes care of the children-low paid child care workers. That program's gone. The jobs are gone. What is this woman supposed to do? She likely doesn't have ACCESS to the health insurance that would have allowed her to get sterilized! BARBARIC!!!

[jessicadevyn]

06:43 PM on 03/01/2010

Absolutely. Most civilzed countries do not treat their women and children that way but the united states does. I blame it on Reagan and his mythical "welfare queen" driving a Cadillac. Things have only gotten worse with the economic depression we are in. It's so easy for people to act all church lady and project their own sexual insecurities on young single mothers and pregnant women as piriahs of society instead of examing themselves in a critical light.

[ArtsyJane]

05:32 AM on 03/02/2010

Excellent points.

[Brothaman2k]

12:18 AM on 03/01/2010

I believe in a woman's right to choose. That still doesn't make this or her any less disturbing and repulsive.

[jalex26000]

03:45 AM on 03/01/2010

great viewpoint and great comment!

[Haastnooit]

01:45 PM on 03/01/2010

All she does is admitting having a early stage abortion by pill and reporting on her experience and by that debunking myths and scare tactics of the conservative. That is a courages thing to do in a time that people get killed for administering them.

[Brothaman2k]

01:58 PM on 03/01/2010

People do what they have to do. That doesn't make what they do anything to be celebrated or glorified.

[tehixe]

09:43 PM on 02/28/2010

#1: Gross.

#2: Take THAT conservatives!

[ghee99]

09:06 PM on 02/28/2010

just so gross

[innate 1]

08:35 PM on 02/28/2010

To "demystify abortion"? I was unaware that abortion was mystical. It's pretty clearly, termination of the life that is growing.
You say you have health reasons, that's fine. But the tweeting and youtube is another agenda completely. So, why hide the rest of your agenda behind a flimsy, crazy rationale like "demystify abortion"? Is there really a niche market need for such info? Are there that many pregnant and mystified by abortion?

[tehixe]

09:44 PM on 02/28/2010

I think it's more like a slap in the face to abortion opponents.

[AejB]

09:59 PM on 02/28/2010

And pro-lifers holding up picks of fetus screaming "murderer" at passersby isn't a slap in the face?

[saltpeter]

08:25 PM on 02/28/2010

Furthermore, the GOP has been paying lip service (and virtually no legislative service) to the Religious Right on the issue of abortion. During the first 6 years of the Bush administration, there was TOTAL GOP control and yet not one piece of legislation was offered to counter the current abortion laws. In the end, the GOP and it's top brass have ZERO desire to fully remove the rights of women to choose because a) the majority of Americans believe that it should be legal and thus the GOP is unwilling to fight the necessary legislative battle at the risk of losing moderate supporters and b) the GOP would lose one of it's biggest carrots on a stick that they use to lure white working and middle class voters to vote for a corporatist ran party that in reality cares very little about working and middle class needs no matter what race you are.

[18]

07:59 PM on 02/28/2010

It was the fetus or her - she chose her own life and the life of her son over a group of cells - that happened to have some blood pumping through them - all you life begins at conception people should just get over it. Abortion is legal and women have the right to choose to protect their own life and the life of their born children at the expense of a group of cells - even if they do have blood pumping through them.

[klbrz]

11:19 PM on 02/28/2010

You sound conflicted.

[johnr49]

11:37 PM on 02/28/2010

To you, maybe.

[skunky93]

09:00 AM on 03/02/2010

Read it again..and again and again and again until u realize that the conflict u seem to find is coming from u.