The ads are up at four Metro stations, plus bus shelters and other billboards. Photo by Rachel Sadon.

Carafem, the new abortion provider in Friendship Heights that made headlines last month for its open, “spa-like” approach to care, launched an advertising campaign this week.

They put up a video that features three women using euphemisms like “I heard she had appendicitis” and “Well, I heard she went to the countryside,” while giving knowing glances, before a fourth just comes out with it and says “Oh, you’re talking about abortion.” It ends with the tag line: “Because there’s no shame in it.”

Carafem also placed bright pink ads at several Metro stations, bus shelters, and other locations around the city showing a texted conversation that ends with “My period is two weeks late …” The headline declares “ABORTION. Yeah, we do that.”

“It presents the topic of abortion care in the same manner and tone as hospitals and other healthcare providers have presented common medical services for years,” said Melissa S. Grant, Carafem’s vice president of health services, in an email to DCist. “One in three women in the U.S. will have an abortion in her lifetime, Carafem aims to lift the stigma that surrounds this common medical procedure.”

While Grant couldn’t say how many people they have served in their first few weeks, she said that “women are finding us and reaching out for appointments … Most clients are seen within about an hour at a cost of $400.”

Carafem offers the abortion pill, which can only be taken within the first 10 weeks of pregnancy.

According to a 2011 study by the Guttmacher Institute, D.C.’s abortion rate was 28.5 abortions per 1,000 women of reproductive age (the national average was 16.1).