Pro-choice advocates frequently argue that abortion is a medical procedure and couch it in terms of women’s health. They’ve been using this argument for years, acting as though abortion is a medical necessity when, in the vast majority of cases, the health of the mother is not even a contributing factor. Branding abortion as a medical procedure is a way to help women avoid the truth of what abortion is, but one Maryland abortion clinic has gone even further to make women feel as though it is something to be undertaken casually — by providing abortions in a spa-like atmosphere.

The clinic is called Carafem, and they have made news recently for their laid-back approach to abortion. In a desire to make abortion feel mundane and mainstream, they’re working to de-stigmatize it, marketing it less like a medical procedure than a trip to the spa. “It was important for us to try to present an upgraded, almost spa-like feel,” Melissa S. Grant, vice president of health services for the clinic told the Washington Post. With advertisements reading “Abortion? Yeah, we do that,” the company specializes in the morning-after pill and isn’t shy about it. “We don’t want to talk in hushed tones,” Carafem President Christopher Purdy said. “We use the A-word.”

For more than a decade, Purdy worked with a nonprofit group focused on family planning and HIV prevention. He decided to start Carafem, he said, because “I was flabbergasted … that it was easier to get an abortion in Ethi­o­pia compared with the United States.” He wanted to make it that easy in the United States. At Carafem, women will be able to come into the clinic, receive counseling and basic tests, pay their $400, and, before they leave, take the first of 2 pills which will cause the abortion.

This clinic with the pretty face exposes some ugly truths about the abortion industry. Abortion advocates and clinics do not want people actually thinking about what abortion is: a choice to end a life. First, they tried to sell it as a mere medical procedure on par with, saying, having lumpectomy. Women shouldn’t allow themselves to be fooled. The procedure almost never has anything to do with the health of the mother, is no more a medical necessity than a cosmetic procedure, and it is one with far greater consequences.

Now Carafam is taking the abortion industry’s penchant for Orwellian labeling a step further — abortion as relaxing trip to the spa. Killing your baby is now on par with getting a pedicure.

Curiously, counseling is provided at Carafem, which clashes with their premise that having an abortion is no big deal. Why would a woman need counseling for a casual hour at the spa? As for the counseling itself, what can the quality of counseling be when they expect women to be out of the clinic an hour after walking in? In this life-or-death situation,  counseling alone would have to take much longer than the hour appointment they offer.

This, coupled with the fact that Maryland doesn’t have waiting periods for abortions, can have tragic consequences. Depending on appointment availability, a woman could have an abortion within hours of finding out she was pregnant. That woman might still be waiting for the news to sink in and hasn’t had time to find out what options and resources are available in the community, or how her family and partner feel about the pregnancy.

However, a woman who faces what abortion really is and has time to consider keeping her baby, a woman who has real counseling to heop her determine what she should do, might not choose to have the abortion. That leaves Carafem out $400. Better for them that they lie to women about the magnitude of their decision and get the money.

Many women who have abortions are traumatized by the experience, reporting high rates of mental illness,  substance abuse and suicide attempts. The abortion industry sweeps these inconvenient facts under the rug. It’s behavior makes one other reality equally clear: the abortion industry doesn’t care about women. It cares about the bottom line.