I'm posting this in Other Topics because there's no mention of her status. She has been in the US 1 year & taking English classes.

http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegio ... &srvc=news

Cops: Fearful teen swallowed black market pills to kill fetus
By Jessica Fargen and O’Ryan Johnson
Thursday, January 25, 2007 - Updated: 02:17 AM EST

LAWRENCE - A tormented teen mom-to-be, spurned by her baby’s father and fearful of burdening her immigrant mother, aborted her fetus by swallowing black-market abortion pills, officials and family said.

Amber Abreu, 18, pleaded not guilty yesterday in Lawrence District Court to one count of procuring a miscarriage, a felony.

The Dominican Republic native was seeking to abort her 24-week-old fetus when she ingested the pills, intended only for use by doctors inducing labor. Soon after she gave birth to a live infant who died after four days in a hospital.

A 15-year-old cousin of Abreu, who asked for anonymity, said outside the teen’s three-decker house last night that Abreu sought to abort the fetus to spare her mother the burden of “another baby to care for.” She faulted the father, saying “he turned against her, he didn’t want to help her."

Abreu, who was arrested Tuesday, knew she was going to be a mom and told police she “felt something moving in her belly,” said Essex prosecutor Jessica Strasnick. Later, she told police: “I killed my baby,” Strasnick said.

Abreu took three Misoprostol pills, a drug prescribed legally in the United States for treatment of ulcers. Doctors also use it to induce labor. And they use it in conjuction with the RU-486 pill to induce legal abortions.

Abreu was approximately 24 weeks along when she showed up at Lawrence General Hospital Jan. 5 complaining of abdominal pain and later delivered a girl, who weighed just over one pound, according to a police report. She checked herself out against doctor’s orders three hours after delivery. The Department of Social Services took custody of the newborn, who was treated at a Boston hospital. DSS offered Abreu counseling at the hospital and after the birth, but she declined.

Abreu’s lawyer, Amanda Barker, said Abreu takes night classes to learn English and was not a flight risk. A judge set her bail at $15,000 cash. Officials said she could face manslaughter charges.

Women’s advocates say Abreu could have obtained the help she needed without resorting to the illicit prescription pills not far from where lived with her mother and two brothers in Lawrence.

“She didn’t have access to the resources to make a better decision,” said Dr. Karen Lifford, medical director at Planned Parenthood of Massachusetts, whose Spanish-speaking crisis operators could have refered her to a nearby family planning clinic in Lawrence.

Virginia Reynolds, spokeswoman for Catholic Charities, said their Lawrence branch does outreach to connect with struggling Latina moms-to-be and counsel them on adoption. “One of the goals is to tell women they have options to abortion,” she said.

Abreu has been in the states for about a year. Her landlady, Kemnia Lantigua, who had a baby girl a week ago, said her shy tenant bought her purple and pink baby clothes in December. She never knew her tenant was pregnant.

“She’s so nice,” she said.