Teenager Faces Seven Years for Abortion

Massachusetts -- Do you think if she would have been a 18 year old privileged white male, about to head off to some ivy league institution things would have been decided much differently?

Instead, Amber Abreu is a 18 year old native of the Dominican Republic that's now residing in Massachusetts and has been for the past year and a half. Who was studying English and working at Macy's. Unfortunately, she found herself pregnant and without any immediate hope of securing the proper finances that could support a child. Amber felt the only way out from this unplanned pregnancy was abortion. Yet, she had no money.

So she took a prescription ulcer medication, cytotec/misoprostol to abort.

This is how the women in her home country terminate pregnancies, due to the fact abortions are illegal in the Dominican Republic. Amber bled and had tremendous pain for several days, which led her to the emergency room. She delivered a 1 pound baby girl that lived for 4 days.

Amber self-abortion took place 25 weeks into the pregnancy. At 24 weeks this would have been okay, but this additional week has caused criminal charges to be filed against her. She was arrested & jailed on a 1840's Massachusetts law, "illegally procuring a miscarriage," but bonded out on a $16,000 surety.

Originally, the prosecutor wanted to charge Amber with murder, which carried 25 years. The only reason this wasn't pursued was because the prosecutor felt it would not stick. The jury wasn't going to buy it. I bet he/she also knew the possibility of actually getting an indictment on this charge was near impossible. However, she is facing 7 years in prison.

As stated by Boston IMC "Women's oppression is built into capitalism." I couldn't have said it any better. Yet, this is not limited to only women. This goes straight across the board for all nationalities, gender and races. And, that's why we have so many Americans who fall into the category of the 'working poor'. Most sadly to say, 'this does not exclude the children'.

Working Class Emancipation has come to the defense of Amber.