Her daughter was denied life-saving cancer treatment because of her pregnancy. Now, this mother is fighting to decriminailize abortions in Dominican Republic.
Category
đź—ž
NewsTranscript
00:00My daughter was 16 years old and I always told her,
00:03I want you to stop that pregnancy because my daughter needs medical treatment.
00:07But I told myself, we can't give her anything because she is pregnant.
00:11And all the time it was like that.
00:12They let my daughter die.
00:31I took her to the emergency room at Sema Santo Domingo.
00:34And they told me that she had a few-week-old pregnancy.
00:37After 15 days, the results came.
00:40But they knew.
00:42They knew that my daughter had leukemia.
00:44They just kept quiet and didn't tell me.
00:46They gave her calmantico so as not to damage the pregnancy.
00:49All the aunts said, I can't stand the pain.
00:52I'm dying.
01:00I never thought I would be part of that statistic of women who abort.
01:10I didn't think it was going to happen to me.
01:11I was so desperate that I took the first option.
01:15The clinic is in a very bad state.
01:28Very dirty, very, very, very dirty.
01:30Very careless.
01:31Even the toilet was covered.
01:32There was no water.
01:33It is obvious that something very shady is happening there.
01:37So they put me on the bed.
01:39It was a metal table, as I said, it had no sheets or anything.
01:42They injected me with anesthesia.
01:44And he started the process.
01:47I was screaming a lot because I was uncomfortable.
01:50I was telling him to stop.
01:51And he told me that I was an idiot.
01:52That really was very traumatic.
01:54I mean, I could have died there.
02:07What we are asking for is the right to decide.
02:09Because right now we don't have options.
02:11I'm not going to shut him up because my daughter was destroyed.
02:13Abortion is forbidden.
02:15You can't do that here in our country.
02:18She had many plans, many hopes.
02:20She had many dreams.