UN-Funded Pro-Abortion Group Attacks Costa Rica’s In Vitro Ban

By C-FAM Staff | 2005

      (NEW YORK – C-FAM)  The Center For Reproductive Rights (CRR), the most active pro-abortion litigant in the United States and a major global pro-abortion force, has filed supporting documents in a case against Costa Rica that is now pending before an international human rights commission. The outcome of the case could have repercussions on pro-life legislation throughout the Americas.

     Costa Rica's Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court issued its landmark pro-life ruling in 2000, finding that "the human embryo is a person from the moment of conception … not an object," so that its life and must be protected by the law from conception, and banning in-vitro fertilization (IVF) due to the "disproportionate risk of death" to embryos used in the procedure.

     The Chamber's decision has been challenged by Costa Rica's only IVF clinic and ten infertile Costa Rican couples, who have filed a complaint with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). The CRR filed an amicus brief earlier this month in support of their claims.

     The challengers allege among other things that the Court's ruling violates various provisions of the American Convention on Human Rights, which was ratified by Costa Rica in 1970. However, the American Convention itself contains a "Right to Life" provision stating that "Every person has the right to have his life respected. This right shall be protected by law and, in general, from the moment of conception. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life." The challengers want to limit this clause by arguing that "the right to life is relative, and. . . it is subject to limitations when it is opposed to the protection of other fundamental rights."

     The CRR openly admits that it uses international law to promote abortion, saying in a recent report that it has "pioneered using international human rights law and legal mechanisms to secure women's reproductive rights," and that it has "filed groundbreaking legal cases in the inter-American human rights system." The CRR considers this case important because "Depending on the Inter-American Commission's final decision, governments and courts across North and South America could cite its ruling…in developing and interpreting their countries' laws on reproductive technologies, contraception and abortion."

     The Commission is due to consider the case in March, 2005. It will then issue a report recommending actions to be taken by Costa Rica, and if its recommendations are not adopted within three months, it may submit the case to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, where any decision would be binding on Costa Rica.

     CRR is one of the most aggressive promoters of abortion in the world and is financially assisted by the UN Population Fund (UNFPA). UNPFA, however, denies they support abortion.

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